With the acceleration of the clean energy transition, photovoltaic capital continues to "snowball", the global investment in the solar energy field is far more than 1 billion US dollars (7.2096 billion yuan) every day, capital continues to increase investment in the solar energy industry, the scale of photovoltaic power plants continues to expand, GW-level projects are becoming more and more common.
Bloomberg's Q1 2024 outlook predicts that the global PV installed capacity will reach 520-655GWdc in 2024, continuing to grow.
From the customs data, since the first quarter of 2024, overseas markets, especially in Europe, have gradually completed destocking, although the year-on-year decline is still in the channel, but the production schedule of mainstream inverter companies has increased month-on-month, and the inverters exported to Europe have increased month-on-month.
In addition, the shipment demand in Africa and South America has increased significantly, and compared with the fourth quarter of 2023, inverter exports have recovered to a certain extent and returned to the growth track.
In this context, the inverter companies have shown a good momentum of development, especially in Guangdong, Huawei, Growatt, Hewang, Sanjing Electric, Jiangsu AISWEI, Sineng Electric, GoodWe has increased significantly, and the exports of this region have also maintained year-on-year and month-on-month growth for two consecutive months.
In addition, Jinlang Technology, Hoymiles, and Yuneng Technology in Zhejiang also performed well, and exports continued to grow. Among them, Hoymiles' orders increased significantly in March, and Yuneng Technology expects that the annual shipment target for this year will increase by 30% year-on-year. According to the author's understanding, the industry generally has positive expectations for the development of the photovoltaic storage market in 2024.
01
Competing for hot markets: when the global tour is underway
In the past quarter, inverter companies kicked off a new round of global market competition as in previous years. According to the author's observation, there is basically a domestic and international "two-handed" trend, and in the international market, due to the different target markets, the focus of enterprises is also slightly different.
In general, the overseas hot markets of various inverter companies in the first quarter include Japan, the United States, Spain, South Africa, Italy, Poland, the Netherlands, Germany and other countries.
Among them, CHINT Power participated in almost all the activities of domestic and foreign hot markets in the first quarter, and its photovoltaic inverters, energy storage system products and solutions have been unveiled in photovoltaic exhibitions in the United States, Spain, Poland, Italy, Japan and other countries.
It is interesting to note that CHINT Power has shown continuous strength in the U.S. market, which is different from the contraction strategy of some companies. In recent years, although the United States has set up various tariffs and trade barriers, as the world's second photovoltaic market, it is still attractive, and the performance of CHINT Power in the United States this year is expected.
At the Photovoltaic Storage Exhibition in Boston, in order to meet the challenge of high proportion of new energy grid-connected, CHINT Power built a comprehensive and efficient photovoltaic system solution for ground power stations, including inverters, combiner boxes (two types), Cluster brackets, and SKID (4.2/3.3/2.8MVA), which can not only match 275kW inverters, but also match 350kW inverters, which is more suitable for the needs of American customers.
In addition, from the actions of CHINT Power, it can be seen that Poland is also one of its key markets. Thanks to the government's active support for renewable energy and the continuous growth of market demand, Poland's solar industry has ushered in a golden period of vigorous development in recent years. 2023 Inverter Big Winners!
Poland's PV market has historically been centered around distributed microgrids, and its growth rate is leading across Europe. Recently, the Polish government has introduced policies that have led to industrial-scale PV projects starting to emerge as winners in the auction of renewable energy projects in Poland. In response to market changes, CHINT has launched a new generation of 100/125kW string inverter in Poland, which is more in line with the growing demand of the industrial and commercial photovoltaic market in Poland.
Coincidentally, Hoymiles also performed well in the first quarter of 2024. At Solar Solutions 2024, Hoymiles signed a partnership agreement with VDH Solar, a top distributor in the Dutch PV industry. VDH Solar is one of the most well-known and largest distributors of solar products in the Netherlands, among the top five PV distributors in the Netherlands.
In addition to Hoymiles, AISWEI, Jinlang Technology, Sanjing Electric, Growatt, Shouhang and other companies are also on global tour. With the continuous expansion of inverter and energy storage companies, the overseas competition of domestic manufacturers is also further intensifying, and the competition in the photovoltaic industry will usher in a real white-hot in 2024.
(Placement)
02
Beyond the module, the photovoltaic "first brother" changes hands to the inverter leader
It is undeniable that the photovoltaic industry in 2023 is involuting at the extreme on the one hand, and is also developing at a high speed on the other. In the past year, A-share inverter companies have also been frequently popular with capital, Jinlang Technology and Deye once stood at the 100 billion mark, and Sungrow Power Supply has also returned to a market value of 200 billion.
Entering 2024, Sungrow's share price also performed well, and it frequently challenged the market value of LONGi Green Energy, the "first brother of photovoltaics", after Sungrow became the stock with the highest total market value among photovoltaic concept stocks with a total market value of 156.921 billion yuan.
Sungrow's "counterattack" has also made more attention from inside and outside the industry focus on the inverter sector, which is an equipment link that is significantly different from the photovoltaic cell module industry chain.
According to the previously disclosed performance forecast, Sungrow expects revenue of 71 billion yuan to 76 billion yuan in 2023, a significant increase of 76%-89% year-on-year, net profit of 9.3 billion yuan to 10.3 billion yuan, a year-on-year doubling of 159%-187%, and non-net profit of 9.15 billion yuan to 10.15 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 170%-200%.
From the perspective of Sungrow's regional revenue, overseas revenue accounts for more than 50%, and the profit contribution mainly comes from the Americas and Europe, while its household storage market in Europe is mainly concentrated in the German-speaking region.
For the market expectation in 2024, Sungrow previously said in a conference call that the demand for inverters will continue to grow, but because the base is getting larger and larger, the growth rate will slow down slightly, roughly maintaining the average growth rate for so many years.
In the first three quarters of 2023, Deye Co., Ltd., another inverter company that attracted attention, achieved a total operating income of 6.326 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 55.29%, and a net profit attributable to the parent company of 1.568 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 69.13%. At present, Deye has fully covered the product matrix of energy storage, string and microinverter, and is a rare inverter company in the industry that realizes the synergistic growth of three types of products. Among them, the household energy storage inverter is one of the company's most competitive products.
In the first three quarters of 2023, GoodWe achieved a total operating income of 5.650 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 93.80%, and a net profit attributable to the parent company of 893 million yuan, a year-on-year increase of 224.49%. It is reported that its revenue changes in the first three quarters benefited from the good development trend of the photovoltaic industry, and the company's sales of inverters, batteries and household systems increased compared with the same period last year.
However, in the fourth quarter, GoodWe's revenue and net profit declined, with revenue of 1.702 billion yuan in the quarter, a year-on-year decrease of 5.18%. The net profit loss was 25 million yuan, and the non-net profit loss was 56 million yuan. It is reported that the loss in the fourth quarter is related to the greater pressure of overseas destocking. Previously, Huang Min, chairman and general manager of GoodWe, said at the third quarter of 2023 performance briefing that the company's main overseas customers are downstream dealers, and the speed of delivery to the company has slowed down when the dealers' inventory is high.
On February 23, GoodWe released a performance report, the company's revenue in 2023 was 7.352 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 56.09%, and its net profit was 868 million yuan, a year-on-year increase of 33.65%. In the first quarter of 2024, the company's destocking is close to the bottom. Gangtise investment research analysts said that GoodWe's April production schedule increased by about 40% month-on-month.
During the reporting period, the company achieved a total operating income of 1.424 billion yuan, an increase of 6.42% over the previous year, a net profit attributable to the owners of the parent company of 208 million yuan, a decrease of 42.20% from the previous year, and a net profit attributable to the owners of the parent company after deducting non-recurring gains and losses of 166 million yuan, a decrease of 51.09% from the previous year
Although the net profit of Yuneng Technology is relatively reduced, as a leading company in the field of micro-inverter, it still has a strong moat. Recently, Yuneng Technology said that the company is actively promoting the application of photovoltaic + energy storage in all scenarios, and constantly improving the three distributed optical storage full-scenario solutions and products with microinverters as the core: DIY micro-optical storage, residential photovoltaic storage and industrial and commercial optical storage. And through the domestic and international two-wheel drive market strategy, strengthen market penetration, and strive to achieve scale and efficiency growth within the year.
03
Energy storage continues to roll in: volume price, volume details
Energy storage has become a promising growth path for many inverter companies.
At the same time, new companies continue to enter, especially with the successive entry of energy storage subsidiaries of central state-owned enterprises, which has intensified the involution of the industry.
Under the fierce involution, the first thing to reflect is the price. Since the beginning of 2024, the energy storage industry has continued the trend of low-price competition, and battery cell companies generally offer 0.4 yuan/Wh, which is nearly halved compared with the beginning of last year.
In the past quarter, companies have released new iterations of energy storage products and solutions, among which the representative of battery cells is the 314Ah energy storage cell released by Desay Battery.
In terms of new household storage systems, Huawei Smart PV has released a new generation of household energy storage products, LUNA2000-7/14/21-S1, which uses 280Ah ultra-large capacity cells, and optimizes the energy of each battery pack to achieve a life-cycle power availability of more than 40% of the industry average, while promising a 15-year warranty.
As an important highlight of inverter companies in the first quarter, Huawei's 2024 Top 10 Smart PV Trends were also released as scheduled, and this year's Top 10 Trends put forward the development direction of innovative technologies such as power electronics technology, energy storage technology, full life cycle digitalization, and big security, to support the high-quality development of the PV industry. This shows that Huawei continues to make efforts in technological innovation and market layout, especially in the fields of smart photovoltaic and energy storage technologies.
One of the important highlights in the first quarter of China was the Jinan Photovoltaic Exhibition, where Huawei, Jinlang Technology, AISWEI, Sineng Electric, Sungrow, Yuneng Technology, etc., gathered together to launch new and upgraded inverter and energy storage solutions.
Among them, AISWEI focused on the integrated production and research development of optical storage and charging, and exhibited a variety of exclusive green power solutions, which fit different scenarios and launched optical storage synergy.
In addition, another interesting phenomenon in the first quarter is the release of major lists, and various inverters and energy storage companies compete to show their leadership in which segment.
Among them, in 2023, in the ranking of shipments of China's household self-owned brand energy storage system solution providers, the top 10 Chinese energy storage companies in terms of shipments are: Huawei Digital Energy, Sungrow, Wotai Energy, Growatt, Deye, Maitian Energy, Peneng Technology, Daqin Digital Energy, Shuangdeng Group, and Kehua Digital Energy.
Article source: With the acceleration of the pace of clean energy transformation, photovoltaic capital continues to "snowball", the world invests far more than 1 billion US dollars (7.2096 billion yuan) in the solar energy field every day, capital continues to increase investment in the solar energy industry, the scale of photovoltaic power plants continues to expand, and GW-level projects are becoming more and more common.
Bloomberg's Q1 2024 outlook predicts that the global PV installed capacity will reach 520-655GWdc in 2024, continuing to grow.
From the customs data, since the first quarter of 2024, overseas markets, especially in Europe, have gradually completed destocking, although the year-on-year decline is still in the channel, but the production schedule of mainstream inverter companies has increased month-on-month, and the inverters exported to Europe have increased month-on-month.
In addition, the shipment demand in Africa and South America has increased significantly, and compared with the fourth quarter of 2023, inverter exports have recovered to a certain extent and returned to the growth track.
In this context, the inverter companies have shown a good momentum of development, especially in Guangdong, Huawei, Growatt, Hewang, Sanjing Electric, Jiangsu AISWEI, Sineng Electric, GoodWe has increased significantly, and the exports of this region have also maintained year-on-year and month-on-month growth for two consecutive months.
In addition, Jinlang Technology, Hoymiles, and Yuneng Technology in Zhejiang also performed well, and exports continued to grow. Among them, Hoymiles' orders increased significantly in March, and Yuneng Technology expects that the annual shipment target for this year will increase by 30% year-on-year. According to the author's understanding, the industry generally has positive expectations for the development of the photovoltaic storage market in 2024.
01
Competing for hot markets: when the global tour is underway
In the past quarter, inverter companies kicked off a new round of global market competition as in previous years. According to the author's observation, there is basically a domestic and international "two-handed" trend, and in the international market, due to the different target markets, the focus of enterprises is also slightly different.
In general, the overseas hot markets of various inverter companies in the first quarter include Japan, the United States, Spain, South Africa, Italy, Poland, the Netherlands, Germany and other countries.
Among them, CHINT Power participated in almost all the activities of domestic and foreign hot markets in the first quarter, and its photovoltaic inverters, energy storage system products and solutions have been unveiled in photovoltaic exhibitions in the United States, Spain, Poland, Italy, Japan and other countries.
It is interesting to note that CHINT Power has shown continuous strength in the U.S. market, which is different from the contraction strategy of some companies. In recent years, although the United States has set up various tariffs and trade barriers, as the world's second photovoltaic market, it is still attractive, and the performance of CHINT Power in the United States this year is expected.
At the Photovoltaic Storage Exhibition in Boston, in order to meet the challenge of high proportion of new energy grid-connected, CHINT Power built a comprehensive and efficient photovoltaic system solution for ground power stations, including inverters, combiner boxes (two types), Cluster brackets, and SKID (4.2/3.3/2.8MVA), which can not only match 275kW inverters, but also match 350kW inverters, which is more suitable for the needs of American customers.
In addition, from the actions of CHINT Power, it can be seen that Poland is also one of its key markets. Thanks to the government's active support for renewable energy and the continuous growth of market demand, Poland's solar industry has ushered in a golden period of vigorous development in recent years. 2023 Inverter Big Winners!
Poland's PV market has historically been centered around distributed microgrids, and its growth rate is leading across Europe. Recently, the Polish government has introduced policies that have led to industrial-scale PV projects starting to emerge as winners in the auction of renewable energy projects in Poland. In response to market changes, CHINT has launched a new generation of 100/125kW string inverter in Poland, which is more in line with the growing demand of the industrial and commercial photovoltaic market in Poland.
Coincidentally, Hoymiles also performed well in the first quarter of 2024. At Solar Solutions 2024, Hoymiles signed a partnership agreement with VDH Solar, a top distributor in the Dutch PV industry. VDH Solar is one of the most well-known and largest distributors of solar products in the Netherlands, among the top five PV distributors in the Netherlands.
In addition to Hoymiles, AISWEI, Jinlang Technology, Sanjing Electric, Growatt, Shouhang and other companies are also on global tour. With the continuous expansion of inverter and energy storage companies, the overseas competition of domestic manufacturers is also further intensifying, and the competition in the photovoltaic industry will usher in a real white-hot in 2024.
(Placement)
02
Beyond the module, the photovoltaic "first brother" changes hands to the inverter leader
It is undeniable that the photovoltaic industry in 2023 is involuting at the extreme on the one hand, and is also developing at a high speed on the other. In the past year, A-share inverter companies have also been frequently popular with capital, Jinlang Technology and Deye once stood at the 100 billion mark, and Sungrow Power Supply has also returned to a market value of 200 billion.
Entering 2024, Sungrow's share price also performed well, and it frequently challenged the market value of LONGi Green Energy, the "first brother of photovoltaics", after Sungrow became the stock with the highest total market value among photovoltaic concept stocks with a total market value of 156.921 billion yuan.
Sungrow's "counterattack" has also made more attention from inside and outside the industry focus on the inverter sector, which is an equipment link that is significantly different from the photovoltaic cell module industry chain.
According to the previously disclosed performance forecast, Sungrow expects revenue of 71 billion yuan to 76 billion yuan in 2023, a significant increase of 76%-89% year-on-year, net profit of 9.3 billion yuan to 10.3 billion yuan, a year-on-year doubling of 159%-187%, and non-net profit of 9.15 billion yuan to 10.15 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 170%-200%.
From the perspective of Sungrow's regional revenue, overseas revenue accounts for more than 50%, and the profit contribution mainly comes from the Americas and Europe, while its household storage market in Europe is mainly concentrated in the German-speaking region.
For the market expectation in 2024, Sungrow previously said in a conference call that the demand for inverters will continue to grow, but because the base is getting larger and larger, the growth rate will slow down slightly, roughly maintaining the average growth rate for so many years.
In the first three quarters of 2023, Deye Co., Ltd., another inverter company that attracted attention, achieved a total operating income of 6.326 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 55.29%, and a net profit attributable to the parent company of 1.568 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 69.13%. At present, Deye has fully covered the product matrix of energy storage, string and microinverter, and is a rare inverter company in the industry that realizes the synergistic growth of three types of products. Among them, the household energy storage inverter is one of the company's most competitive products.
In the first three quarters of 2023, GoodWe achieved a total operating income of 5.650 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 93.80%, and a net profit attributable to the parent company of 893 million yuan, a year-on-year increase of 224.49%. It is reported that its revenue changes in the first three quarters benefited from the good development trend of the photovoltaic industry, and the company's sales of inverters, batteries and household systems increased compared with the same period last year.
However, in the fourth quarter, GoodWe's revenue and net profit declined, with revenue of 1.702 billion yuan in the quarter, a year-on-year decrease of 5.18%. The net profit loss was 25 million yuan, and the non-net profit loss was 56 million yuan. It is reported that the loss in the fourth quarter is related to the greater pressure of overseas destocking. Previously, Huang Min, chairman and general manager of GoodWe, said at the third quarter of 2023 performance briefing that the company's main overseas customers are downstream dealers, and the speed of delivery to the company has slowed down when the dealers' inventory is high.
On February 23, GoodWe released a performance report, the company's revenue in 2023 was 7.352 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 56.09%, and its net profit was 868 million yuan, a year-on-year increase of 33.65%. In the first quarter of 2024, the company's destocking is close to the bottom. Gangtise investment research analysts said that GoodWe's April production schedule increased by about 40% month-on-month.
During the reporting period, the company achieved a total operating income of 1.424 billion yuan, an increase of 6.42% over the previous year, a net profit attributable to the owners of the parent company of 208 million yuan, a decrease of 42.20% from the previous year, and a net profit attributable to the owners of the parent company after deducting non-recurring gains and losses of 166 million yuan, a decrease of 51.09% from the previous year
Although the net profit of Yuneng Technology is relatively reduced, as a leading company in the field of micro-inverter, it still has a strong moat. Recently, Yuneng Technology said that the company is actively promoting the application of photovoltaic + energy storage in all scenarios, and constantly improving the three distributed optical storage full-scenario solutions and products with microinverters as the core: DIY micro-optical storage, residential photovoltaic storage and industrial and commercial optical storage. And through the domestic and international two-wheel drive market strategy, strengthen market penetration, and strive to achieve scale and efficiency growth within the year.
03
Energy storage continues to roll in: volume price, volume details
Energy storage has become a promising growth path for many inverter companies.
At the same time, new companies continue to enter, especially with the successive entry of energy storage subsidiaries of central state-owned enterprises, which has intensified the involution of the industry.
Under the fierce involution, the first thing to reflect is the price. Since the beginning of 2024, the energy storage industry has continued the trend of low-price competition, and battery cell companies generally offer 0.4 yuan/Wh, which is nearly halved compared with the beginning of last year.
In the past quarter, companies have released new iterations of energy storage products and solutions, among which the representative of battery cells is the 314Ah energy storage cell released by Desay Battery.
In terms of new household storage systems, Huawei Smart PV has released a new generation of household energy storage products, LUNA2000-7/14/21-S1, which uses 280Ah ultra-large capacity cells, and optimizes the energy of each battery pack to achieve a life-cycle power availability of more than 40% of the industry average, while promising a 15-year warranty.
As an important highlight of inverter companies in the first quarter, Huawei's 2024 Top 10 Smart PV Trends were also released as scheduled, and this year's Top 10 Trends put forward the development direction of innovative technologies such as power electronics technology, energy storage technology, full life cycle digitalization, and big security, to support the high-quality development of the PV industry. This shows that Huawei continues to make efforts in technological innovation and market layout, especially in the fields of smart photovoltaic and energy storage technologies.
One of the important highlights in the first quarter of China was the Jinan Photovoltaic Exhibition, where Huawei, Jinlang Technology, AISWEI, Sineng Electric, Sungrow, Yuneng Technology, etc., gathered together to launch new and upgraded inverter and energy storage solutions.
Among them, AISWEI focused on the integrated production and research development of optical storage and charging, and exhibited a variety of exclusive green power solutions, which fit different scenarios and launched optical storage synergy.
In addition, another interesting phenomenon in the first quarter is the release of major lists, and various inverters and energy storage companies compete to show their leadership in which segment.
Among them, in 2023, in the ranking of shipments of China's household self-owned brand energy storage system solution providers, the top 10 Chinese energy storage companies in terms of shipments are: Huawei Digital Energy, Sungrow, Wotai Energy, Growatt, Deye, Maitian Energy, Peneng Technology, Daqin Digital Energy, Shuangdeng Group, and Kehua Digital Energy.
Article source: PV-Tech