China’s largest fuel retailer has stripped a Shanghai filling station of its pumps and underground gasoline tanks, replacing them with BYD battery packs and high-power chargers, according to reporting by electrek.co. The site on Huqingping Road is the first to open under a cooperation framework the two companies signed in June. Chargers are rated up to 1,500 kW on a single connector, but the station draws only around 100 kW from the grid, because stacks of BYD’s Blade batteries store energy on site and release it in bursts. That design avoids the substation-scale grid connection megawatt charging would otherwise require.
Sinopec operates more than 30,000 service stations, and says further conversions are planned. The full report at electrek.co is worth your time.
Summary and commentary by The Times Contrarian. Based on reporting by electrek.co. Read the original article at electrek.co.
Our view: Look at what the physical act says. Pulling fuel tanks out of the ground is not a pilot project you quietly wind down. It is a decision about where the traffic will be in ten years, made by a company whose entire business is knowing where drivers stop.
The clever part is the engineering workaround. By storing power on site instead of demanding it from the grid, the conversion sidesteps the excuse most Western operators reach for first, which is that the wires are not ready. If one forecourt can do this, the question for every other oil retailer becomes uncomfortable. Watch how quickly the second and third conversions appear, and whether anyone outside China tries the same trick.