21st Century Business Herald reporter Fei Xinyi reported from Beijing
At the site of the 12th Energy Storage International Summit and Exhibition (ESIE2024), the 21st Century Business Herald reporter noticed that the old acquaintances on the photovoltaic and wind power tracks are now taking photos on the energy storage track.
For example, photovoltaic veterans such as JinkoSolar and Trina Solar, and wind power veterans such as Envision Energy, Mingyang Intelligence, and Yunda have already quietly laid out the energy storage sector.
At a time when the industry is facing a big explosion, these wind power and photovoltaic companies have successively and strategically opened a new race in R&D, manufacturing, and even development, aiming to take energy storage, which seems to be only separated by a wall from wind power and photovoltaics, as a disciple, in order to find the second growth pole of the business.
Nowadays, how are these photovoltaic and wind power companies running in two boats?
On investment, losses are still the theme
The leading photovoltaic and wind power enterprises not only have a strong financial background, but also have inherent channel advantages. The 21st Century Business Herald reporter noticed that on the manufacturing side, self-research and self-production have increasingly become the key to opening up the situation for these enterprises. The rapid expansion of the market size has also made the performance expectations of these companies quite optimistic. For example, JinkoSolar, which shipped 1GWh of energy storage last year, aims to increase its shipments several times this year, while Trina Energy is more ambitious, aiming to generate sales revenue of more than 100 billion yuan in the next five to eight years, which is about the same size as its photovoltaic business.
Trina Energy was established in 2015 and is a subsidiary of Trina Solar, a publicly traded company. At the end of 2023, Trina Solar announced that its indirect shareholding subsidiary, Trina Energy Storage, plans to increase its capital and shares, with a total capital increase of 1.2 billion yuan. This is another round of capital increase after the capital increase and share expansion in March last year, and Trina Solar has given Trina Energy Storage a valuation of 1.8 billion yuan.
It is worth noting that according to the announcement, Trina Energy Storage's annual revenue in 2022 will reach 2.334 billion yuan, and the net loss attributable to shareholders of the parent company will be 49 million yuan, while the performance in the first nine months of 2023 seems to be inferior to the previous year. As of the end of September 2023, the company's total liabilities increased from 1.950 billion yuan to 4.343 billion yuan. The revenue in the first nine months of last year was 1.012 billion yuan, less than half of the previous year, but the net loss attributable to the parent company was 110 million yuan, more than double the scale of the loss in 2022.
"Blood transfusion to make cars" is not unique in the energy storage sector.
On December 8, 2023, JinkoSolar announced that its wholly-owned subsidiary, Jinko Energy Storage Technology Co., Ltd., intends to sign the "Equity Transfer Agreement" and the "Forward Equity Transfer Agreement" with Haining Xinchao Investment and Development Co., Ltd., and intends to transfer 49% of the equity of Zhejiang Jinko Energy Storage Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as Zhejiang Jinko Energy Storage), a second-level subsidiary of the company, to Haining Xinchao. At that time, JinkoSolar responded to the media, saying: "This transaction is based on the company's overall strategy and the development of energy storage business, which is conducive to promoting the pace of the company's energy storage business expansion." At the same time, it also reflects the confidence of all parties in the company's future energy storage business development and support for the company's energy storage capacity construction. ”
At the same time, in terms of business scale, an announcement from JinkoSolar showed that in the first three quarters of 2023, JinkoSolar's operating income was 125 million yuan, and the net loss was 20.22 million yuan. Jinko Power's 2023 financial report shows that the company has filed and connected a total of 3.9GWh energy storage projects to the grid.
Wind power companies also attach great importance to the investment in the energy storage sector.
On the evening of March 19, 2024, Yunda shares (300772. SZ) announced an announcement on the co-investment and related party transactions of energy storage companies.
According to the announcement, in order to stimulate the passion of core employees for innovation and entrepreneurship and promote the development of innovative business, the company intends to implement the project of the energy storage company. Yunda Co., Ltd. plans to set up a holding subsidiary, Yunda Energy Storage Technology Co., Ltd. (tentative name), as the project operation company, with a registered capital of 100 million yuan, of which the company will contribute 86.9 million yuan, and the co-investment object will contribute 13.1 million yuan through the joint establishment of the co-investment platform (the final capital contribution shall prevail to the co-investment object).
In fact, wind power leaders such as Envision Energy, Goldwind Technology, and Mingyang Intelligent have also entered the energy storage market.
In the 2024 edition of the "Energy Storage Industry Research White Paper" released by CNESA, Envision Energy and Goldwind Zero Carbon both ranked in the top 10 in the "2023 Global Market Energy Storage System Shipment Ranking of Chinese Energy Storage System Integrators".
The 21st Century Business Herald reporter noticed that in March 2023, Goldwind Technology established an energy storage company in Changzhou, Jiangsu. Earlier, Tiancheng Tongchuang, a subsidiary of Goldwind Technology, changed its name to Goldwind Zero Carbon, further highlighting its business attributes. Previously, Tiancheng Tongchuang has been undertaking Goldwind's energy storage business. Offshore wind power giant Mingyang Intelligent has also established an energy storage subsidiary, Ruiyuan Electric.
In terms of manufacturing, self-research and self-production is the mainstream
Photovoltaic and wind power leaders know that if they want to gain the right to speak on the new track, reserve R&D and prepare for production capacity have become necessary topics.
Before the opening of the ESIE2024, Envision Energy Storage released its new smart energy storage system, which is reported to be equipped with Envision Power's new generation of 350Ah energy storage cells.
It is reported that Envision Power's 350Ah energy storage battery has an 11% higher energy density than the 314Ah battery cell commonly used in the industry. The 350Ah energy storage cell prototype has rolled off the assembly line at Envision Power's Shiyan plant in early April 2024 and is expected to be delivered on a large scale in the first quarter of 2025.
Half a year after the official release of the new generation of flexible energy storage battery compartment Elementa2 in October 2023, Trina Energy Storage demonstrated the product for the first time at the ESIE2024 site. It is reported that the product has been mass-produced and will be delivered in May this year.
Sun Wei, Vice President of Trina Solar and President of Trina Energy Storage, said that Trina Solar's vision has been officially upgraded from "a leader in photovoltaic smart energy solutions" to a "leader in photovoltaic and storage smart energy solutions" since last year.
In addition to following the pace of the industry after the launch of 314Ah cells last year, Sun Wei told the 21st Century Business Herald reporter that the company is also laying out large-capacity cells of more than 500Ah+. "This is our two-way research and development, one is based on our electrochemical platform on the internal structure of the battery for many years of experience accumulation of positive research and development, and at the same time from the client to understand a large number of customer needs, from the standard 20-foot battery compartment how to improve the volume ratio energy density reverse calculation, the optimal solution. This product strikes a balance between performance and cost. At the same time, it has broken the status quo of serious product homogenization between manufacturers under the current 71173 specification, which is a 'sharp weapon' in our future competition. ”
Sun Wei said, "If the product is designed in the early stage to take into account the deep integration of optical energy and storage, the conversion between energy will be reduced, for example, the current mode is photovoltaic power generation, input inverter conversion, energy storage and then inverter conversion, and two inverter conversions in the middle." If deep coupling is implanted early on, losses in the energy conversion process can be reduced. ”
JinkoSolar also unveiled its 5MWh large-scale energy storage system and 314Ah self-developed battery cells during the ESIE2024 exhibition. It is reported that the system has the characteristics of ultra-quiet, and the noise is controlled within 75db.
Previously, in the April 2023 investor relations activity table disclosed by JinkoSolar, the management said that the company's advantages in the layout of energy storage lie in channels and brands, energy storage is currently the company's seed business, technology and production capacity are still in the cultivation stage, and the impact on operation is not large. At present, the core of energy storage layout is to build production capacity and improve technology research and development, channels and technical personnel.
Now, JinkoSolar's 5MWh energy storage system will be ready for mass production by the end of May.
In fact, among the many external voices of JinkoSolar's management, energy storage is increasingly mentioned in public. For example, Li Xiande, chairman of JinkoSolar, said at a symposium of experts and entrepreneurs on the economic situation that with the acceleration of technology iteration, photovoltaic power generation has become the most economical and competitive energy source, and the new power generation mode of photovoltaic + energy storage will be widely used and gradually become the main form of power supply in the future. Li Xiande suggested that the state speed up the construction of new energy storage systems, establish a market-oriented power trading model, accelerate the construction of smart grids, and ensure the efficient consumption of photovoltaic power generation.
In the energy storage industry, Jinko has always adhered to the positioning of system integrators.
Wu Dianfeng, general manager of JinkoSolar's product center, told the 21st Century Business Herald reporter that everyone actually thinks about energy storage integration simply, so there will definitely be a batch of energy storage integration in the future. Within JinkoSolar, energy storage integration is part of the core technology.
Wu Dianfeng took the development of PCs as an example, more than ten years ago, the computer industry also had a role as an assembler, by purchasing hard disks, CPUs, motherboards and other components to assemble a computer, but the performance and security effect of that kind of computer was extremely low. JinkoSolar's idea of energy storage integration is to be a "brand computer". JinkoSolar will test the product selection of all suppliers to see if the operating efficiency, heat control, and safety are the best in the system, so JinkoSolar hopes to produce branded products.
"We will treat the 5MWh product as a product, not as a system, not as a puzzle. Wu Dianfeng emphasized.
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