China has accelerated integration of its new energy vehicles (NEVs) with energy transformation.

As NEVs run on electricity generated from renewable energy by interacting with the power grid through charging facilities, Li Ming, deputy chief engineer of the State Grid Corporation of China, told a forum in Beijing on Saturday that increasing the proportion of new energy and green electricity consumption through "green power trading" was an important next step that would accelerate green transformation with China's NEVs.

The country has carried out green power trading, whereby users' requiring green power can trade with wind and photovoltaic power generation enterprises, since 2021, guiding society to consume green power and accelerate its low-carbon transition.

The trading has been carried out in 14 provinces including Shandong, Sichuan and Shaanxi, accumulating 5.2 billion kilowatt-hours of traded electricity and reducing carbon emissions by about 5 million tonnes till now, according to Huang Xuenong, an official at the country's National Energy Administration.

Through large-scale orderly and two-way charging, NEVs can level out peaks in electricity and shift load away whenever the load is low and the network's capacity is high, so as to regulate the power grid's frequency and safety, Huang said.

China had built 111,000 charging stations and 5.59 million charging piles by the end of February 2023, said Huang, adding that it will establish a better vehicle, pile and network integration operation mode, thus integrating development of the NEV and energy industries.

China sold about 6.89 million NEVs in 2022, an increase of 93.4 percent year on year.  NEV production soared 96.9 percent from a year earlier to about 7.06 million units, according to statistics released by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology in January.

The production and sales of NEVs in the country ranked first in the globe for eight consecutive years, said the ministry.

NEVs will become a major force in reducing carbon emissions in the medium to long term, according to Li Yizhong, chairman of the China Federation of Industrial Economics.

Pure electric vehicles can reduce emissions by nearly 40 percent and the effect will be even clearer in the future with the proportion of non-fossil energy in electricity increased and efficiency improved in electric vehicles, Li said at the forum.

Connected vehicles integrate with smart cities

Intelligent connected vehicles will be a new driving force to reduce carbon emissions in China, Li said, adding that safe and efficient autonomous driving can improve travel efficiency by 20 to 30 percent, further reducing carbon emissions.

China has integrated connected vehicles with smart cities by carrying out pilot programs in 16 cities since 2021. The cities have set up sensing facilities including visual radars and interaction facilities at more than 2,000 key intersections, an official at the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development said on Friday.

The country has built 240,000 5G base stations and deployed 1,700 autonomous vehicles with a total test network spanning 27.3 million kilometers.

(With input from Xinhua)