What are we focusing on in the new energy industry in 2022? | speed of light Insight

Driven by the "double carbon" strategy, new energy has become a hot track for the market and capital. At the same time, the influx of Internet manufacturers has further accelerated the development of the new energy industry.

Lightspeed China currently has a good layout in the fields of green technology, hard technology, medical technology, enterprise services and consumer technology. Based on the industry's cognition and forward-looking judgment, the proportion of investment in fields related to the new energy industry is also gradually increasing.

In the view of Zhu Jia, a partner at Speed of Light China, the investment in the new energy track is not a simple capital transaction, but a highly coupled and continuous process of capital flow and technological innovation.

He took the lithium battery industry chain as an example, the upstream materials of lithium batteries, including its positive electrode, anode, diaphragm, electrolyte, not only a heavy asset manufacturing industry, but also a lot of material technology and process innovation. The ultimate goal is to continuously improve the energy density of lithium batteries, improve safety, and extend the number of cycles. The lithium batteries seen now are not the ultimate form of the future, and there is still a lot of room for improvement, and even research and development will be extended to other battery technologies such as sodium batteries.

Another example is hydrogen energy, which is a field involving a lot of technological innovations such as electrochemistry and mechanical engineering. Lightspeed China invested early in Theoba, which supplied 100,000 rpm oil-free air compressors for hydrogen-powered fuel cell systems, a technology previously used in the aerospace sector.

In addition, the membrane electrode, the core component of the hydrogen energy fuel cell, involves the research and development of a large number of catalysts, proton membranes, gas diffusion layers and other materials, which require a lot of scientific and technological innovation. Tang Feng Energy, which Has invested in this field, has achieved world-leading levels of membrane electrode products.

Aim at the future development direction of new energy

Although the new energy industry chain involves many subdivisions, including photovoltaics, energy storage, lithium batteries, hydrogen energy and terminal application areas, it is important for capital to find the core links in the layout. When looking for investment opportunities, Zhu Jia said that we will aim for the future development direction, such as the supply form of new energy.

Among them, the speed of light is very optimistic about the lithium battery industry chain, including the lithium battery itself and its upstream materials, including the core components related to lithium batteries. For example, the BMS battery management system is one of the cores, which is also the reason for the investment in Synergy Technology at the speed of light. From the beginning of its establishment, Xieneng Technology has laid out the cascade utilization chain of lithium-ion power batteries, developed and mastered a large number of cascade utilization technologies, greatly extended the service life of the battery, reduced the full life cycle cost of the power lithium battery, and has great advantages in this field.

The other is the photovoltaic industry chain and hydrogen energy, especially in new energy power generation and terminal applications, there is a lot of room for development.

In addition, the cross-border combination of new energy and traditional industries is also an important direction for the speed of light. Taking the automotive industry as an example, Lightspeed China will focus on the direction of new energy and intelligent integration in the investment of the automobile travel industry this year.

According to data, in December last year, the penetration rate of new energy passenger cars in China's auto retail market was as high as 22.6%. Just a year ago, that figure was just 5.8 percent. What makes Gao Jiankai, a partner at Speed of Light China, feel excited is that not only Tesla and Wei Xiaoli, the new car-making forces, but also the sales of new energy vehicles of traditional car companies represented by BYD are also growing at a high speed.

When it comes to last year's new energy vehicle market, gao Jiankai's eyes have changed more than the numbers: "This year, new energy in the automotive industry has truly completed the transformation from being questioned to fully embracing. ”

Prior to this, from product quality to delivery capacity to business model feasibility, the new energy automobile industry has been moving forward in controversy. In the past year, Toyota, which has been looking down on pure electric vehicles, has begun to fully embrace electrification.

It is expected that the market penetration rate of new energy vehicles in China is expected to increase from nearly 15% in 2021 to more than 20%.

"As the market penetration rate continues to increase, new energy vehicle companies will continue to differentiate their brands based on the differences in user self-perception and positioning." Gao Jiankai believes that some new energy vehicle brands that meet the personalized needs of consumers will usher in opportunities in 2022.

Not only that, the increase in production and sales of new energy passenger vehicles will drive the cost reduction and intelligent level of the entire new energy vehicle market, which also gives new opportunities for new energy commercial vehicles.

For example, Chenchen Automobile, a company that Lightspeed China invested in in the early stages and saw opportunities for new energy commercial vehicles. Qianchen Automobile helps truck drivers and logistics companies reduce operating costs to achieve a win-win situation with customers by improving the level of intelligence of new energy trucks.

Look for investment opportunities from downstream to upstream

Zhu Jia mentioned that when looking for investment opportunities, we will also start from the most downstream terminal products in this industrial chain and continue to do research and layout upstream. Generally speaking, the development of the industry is developed from the application-oriented downstream products, which brings together the value of all aspects of the upstream industrial chain, and the market scale is therefore the largest. Although the market size of these links is not much in the early stage of the industry, with the development and growth of the entire industry, the market size of these upstream links will continue to expand, and extremely valuable leading enterprises will be produced from them.

Taking new energy vehicles as an example, Gao Jiankai believes that with the continuous maturity of the new energy automobile industry, the biggest innovation in the automotive industry in the future will come from the upstream parts industry. In 2022, automotive power chips will be one of the upstream chip areas it focuses on.

"In the future, automotive power chips will be converted from traditional silicon chips to silicon carbide chips." Gao Jiankai said. Compared with traditional silicon chips, new energy vehicles powered by silicon carbide chips can reduce energy losses by about one-fifth. According to his expectations, with the advantage of higher energy conversion efficiency, silicon carbide chips will obtain a large number of market opportunities in the high-voltage charging and discharging of new energy vehicles such as charging piles, vehicle chargers, and inverters.

At present, Lightspeed China has laid out the leading enterprise Zhanxin Technology in the field of silicon carbide chips. More than that, in the future, we will pay long-term attention to more core upstream technologies related to the new energy industry.

Zhu Jia saw that with the intensive influx of funds into the field of new energy investment, a series of changes are currently taking place in the field of new energy. Whether it is the impact of global warming on the environment, or the development of new energy began to get rid of the simple subsidy model to obtain market returns 10 years ago, or the buyer's market for new energy gradually expanded from the government to enterprises and households, these are accelerating the development process of the industry.

"The new energy industry revolution will occur in more fields, thus driving a wider range of industrial upgrading and change." Gao Jiankai firmly believes.