VinFast has planned and is implementing a system of electric vehicle charging stations in Vietnam with up to 150,000 charging ports located at convenient locations across 63 provinces and cities to meet the needs of car and electric scooter users.
Current situations
In order to complete the network of charging stations, VinFast is cooperating with many units and investors to lease premises across the country with only 0 VND investment, and a sustainable profit, a long-term support plan and many attractive policies are some of the privileged benefits for VinFast charging station partners. Accordingly, rest stops, gas stations, parking lots, apartment basements with guaranteed ground to build charging stations can all become VinFast's partners to share revenue.
In particular, the installation of VinFast charging posts does not change the functionality of the premises. Therefore, the placement of charging stations contributes to improving utilities, increasing the value of real estate and the quality of life of residents.
VinFast charging station is manufactured based on ISO-15118 and IEC 61851 standards issued by the International Electrotechnical Commission. Specifically, the DC electric car charging posts meet CCS 2 standards and the normal AC ports reach the European Type 2 level.
VinFast electric car battery charging station currently has 7 types, including:
Mobile car charger 2.2kW and 3.5kW
7.4kW . wall-mounted car charger at home
Slow charging 11kW
DC 30kW and 60kW . car fast charging post
Super fast car charger DC 150kW.
Supercharges 300 kW charging post.
In July 2022, VinFast and Vietnam Oil Corporation (PVOIL) officially inaugurated and put into operation the first electric vehicle charging station at PVOIL petrol station in Cat Hai district, Hai Phong city. This is the first charging station for a chain of nearly 300 VinFast electric vehicle charging stations that will be installed at PVOIL petrol stations nationwide in 2022. This charging station includes one 150 kW fast charging post, 5 60 kW fast charging posts for the ability to charge 12 vehicles at the same time.
Challenges
However, in a recent seminar, this unit said that in the process of building electric vehicle charging stations encountered many difficulties. The reason is because the Ministry of Science and Technology has already had standards on charging posts but there are no standard regulations yet on building charging stations, charging station protection systems. In addition, the installation instructions for charging stations in each specific location have different regulations, uneven power supply/level of power supply, etc.
Although there have been efforts of ministries and sectors in the past time when a number of national standards on electric vehicles have been developed and published, industry experts believe that the number of national technical standards for electric vehicles is still lacking and not really synchronised with the global standard system circulating for electric vehicles.
According to Mr. Vu Thang, Director of the VinFast Station Development Center, "The first difficulty is that there is currently no set of standards for building charging stations, for example on the electrical connection system of the charging station or the protection device system for the charging station. During the construction process, we have to apply an equivalent set of international standards, which is the set of standards of IEC (International Electrotechnical Commission). The second is the difficulty related to the legal framework guiding the installation of charging stations in each specific locality, because each locality will have different interpretations and different instructions. In addition, there is a limitation on the power supply to the charging station, currently not everywhere is available, as well as the level of power is uneven".
When installing charging stations in apartment buildings, VinFast faced opposition from people living there due to fire safety. “The construction of the charging station will lead to an increase in the load, considering the case of Vinfast's charging station development, if the minimum capacity of 11kW charging posts is calculated, 40,000 charging posts means about 440MW of charging station capacity will be connected to the system. Maybe even more than 1GW if charging heads with larger capacity are counted (this is a provisional number, the official number has not been announced by VinFast). This also means that the electric vehicle load alone can increase from a few hundred MW to several GW in the coming years. That is equivalent to about 2 Hoa Binh hydroelectric power plants or equivalent to the capacity of Lai Chau hydropower plant. There will be even more if the charging station infrastructure continues to develop as it is now (1 Hoa Binh hydropower unit with a capacity of 240MW)”, said Mr. Vo Quang Lam, Deputy General Director of Vietnam Electricity (EVN) EVN) said in the webinar "Infrastructure for electric vehicles in Vietnam" taking place in September 2021.
Currently, there are two potential directions of technological solutions that are being researched and directed by many countries, including smart charging with integrated transmission lines and algorithms, allowing to shift the charging time to low load, with cheaper charging price. The second solution is the Vehicle to Grid (V2G), as with a large capacity, the batteries of the electric vehicle can back-up power and support the grid when needed.
The promotion of technology application not only solves the problem of charging stations but also contributes significantly to reducing the cost of electric vehicles - one of the main barriers in the process of popularizing electric vehicles in Vietnam.
Source: the Internet