China’s move from coal to clean
Thousands of electric taxis are helping a coal town clear its polluted skies
Sitting in the middle of almost 270 billion tonnes of coal reserves, the northern Chinese city of Taiyuan is an unlikely place to look for a leader in the battle for a greener future.
This, after all, was once ranked as the only urban area in the country with air that was fouler than in Beijing.
Now, China’s coal capital is trying to clean up its act.
The l ocal government has implemented rules designed to bring back blue skies, requiring coal-fired plants to install scrubbers, clamping down on the most-polluting vehicles, regulating barbecue stands and banning farmers from burning straw.
But its biggest coup came last month, when the city of 4.3 million people became the first metropolis to replace its entire fleet of taxis with electric vehicles.
Eight thousand cab drivers have traded in their Volkswagen Jettas and Santanas for new, subsidised BYD allelectric E6 cars at a total cost to the government of 800 million yuan ($165m). Another 129 million yuan or more has gone to funding a network of 1800 charging stations.
It’s a welcome boost for stateowned factories that have struggled with an economic slowdown and a shift away from coal.
“This is a big cake and a lot of people want to have a taste,” says Gao Peng, head of the new energy unit at state-owned Shanxi Fenxi Heavy Industry, which turned its filingcabinet factory into an indoor charging station in July.
With industrial provinces across China struggling to transform from the old debt-fuelled, state-run model, Taiyuan’s taxis may offer a path to ease the pain. The country needs to fire 1.3m coal workers to trim overcapacity, Human Resources and Social Security Minister Yin Weimin said in March.
But “it’s hard to do the business,” says Yan Wusheng, a taxi driver for 10 years. “Fewer people are taking cabs these days because their salaries are not good.” Yan got his new E6 in April and has clocked up 43,000 kilometres in the taxi. His earnings are down by about a fifth this year
This is a big cake and a lot of people want to have a taste. Gao Peng, Shanxi Fenxi Heavy Industry
because of the slump and the need to spend two hours each day recharging the battery.
Taiyuan’s taxi replacement plan got a boost in January after mayor Geng Yanbo signed an agreement with BYD to set up a manufacturing plant in the city.
The combination of economic slowdown and cleaner vehicles has helped Taiyuan drop down the pollution rankings. It fell to to 86th out of 366 Chinese cities monitored by Greenpeace last year. Air quality in the city improved 18 per cent in the first half of this year as the new electric taxis were being rolled out.
The success has put the provincial capital in the vanguard of President Xi Jinping’s plans to roll back the deadly pollution that built up in China’s cities during the boom years. The central government wants to see 12,000 charging stations across the nation to serve 5m electric vehicles by 2020.
At least 14 cities including Beijing and Shanghai offer subsidies of up to 30 per cent to encourage companies to build the stations.
The lack of charging stations is one of the key roadblocks to getting the public to buy electric vehicles (EVs). In an exhibition hall below the imposing Coal Trading Centre of Taiyuan, residents view the latest EV offerings and other green technologies at an energy expo. One says he’d like to see at least triple the number of charging stations before he’d buy an EV. Others complain of the high price or worry about the quality and weight of the vehicles.
Taiyuan has cut the approval process for new charging stations to encourage operators. Shanxi Fenxi received the green light three days after it submitted an application in June. The maker of generators and equipment for ships and mines cleared machine tools out of its cabinet factory and installed 19 charging posts, offering drivers a car wash, WiFi, cheap beef noodles and deck chairs to relax in during charging, which typically takes 30 minutes to 2 hours.
E6 cabs wait in lines during the peak recharging time around midnight and the station cleared nearly 300,000 yuan in the first 40 days after opening, says Gao. Fifteen former factory employees, who would otherwise have been fired, are now station managers, monitoring the posts via a smartphone app.
Competitor Yang Junlin is less enthusiastic. He rented a disused plant from a state-run pharmaceutical group after agreeing to hire former workers.
The test, he says, will be the winter.
The average temperature in January is minus 6C and that may affect battery performance. “Only if the EVs can endure the cold weather this year will our business live on,” says Yang.
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