On the evening of April 25, GCL-ET released its 2023 annual report and 2024 first quarter report. In 2023, the company's net profit attributable to shareholders of listed companies increased by 32.87% year-on-year to 909 million yuan, and the gross profit margin of its main business reached 21.75%, an increase of 5.54 percentage points over the previous year.
A series of positive policies and favorable industries have boosted the company's high-quality development and accelerated the formation of new energy productivity. In 2023, the construction of a new energy system in mainland China will be accelerated, and the development of renewable energy will show historic changes. New energy sources such as wind power and photovoltaic power have become the dual main bodies of new installed capacity and power generation, the development of emerging energy industries such as energy storage, integrated energy services, and charging and swapping has jumped onto a new track, and new quality productivity with digitalization and greening as the core has become a strong new driving force leading the energy transition. In this context, the company continues to optimize the asset structure, rapidly increase the proportion of renewable energy, expand energy application scenarios, build an integrated business of photovoltaic storage and charging, upgrade core capabilities, innovate the profit model of comprehensive energy services, and comprehensively transform into a new integrated power system service provider around the development requirements of source-grid-load-storage integration.
Net profit increased by more than 30%, and repurchase + dividends were re-returned
In 2023, GCL-ET demonstrated continuously enhanced profitability and anti-risk capabilities. During the reporting period, the company achieved operating income of 10.144 billion yuan, net profit attributable to shareholders of listed companies of 909 million yuan, a year-on-year increase of 32.87%, gross profit margin of the company was 21.75%, an increase of 5.54 percentage points over the previous year, and net cash flow from operating activities was 2.279 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 83.23%. In the first quarter of 2024, the company achieved revenue of 2.414 billion yuan and net profit attributable to shareholders of listed companies of 188 million yuan.
At the same time as the annual report, the company announced the 2023 equity distribution plan: based on the company's existing share capital of 1.581 billion shares after deducting the repurchased shares, a cash dividend of RMB 1.3 (tax included) will be distributed to all shareholders for every 10 shares, and it is expected to distribute cash dividends of RMB 206 million (tax included), with a cumulative dividend of RMB 1.04 billion for four consecutive years.
In addition, the company has carried out share repurchase since January 2023, and as of December 2023, a total of 41.87 million shares have been completed, with a total transaction amount of about 500 million yuan. The total amount of cash dividends and repurchases accounted for 77% of the net profit attributable to shareholders of listed companies in 2023.
It is also worth mentioning that the company disclosed its 2023 environmental, social and corporate governance report on the same day. According to the report, the company's R&D investment in 2023 (including capitalized utilization) will be 107 million yuan, a year-on-year increase of 11.07%, and the annual comprehensive energy consumption will continue to decline significantly, a year-on-year decrease of about 20%.
The scale of photovoltaic storage reached a new high, and the asset structure continued to be optimized
In terms of asset structure optimization, the renewable energy business grew rapidly. As of December 31, 2023, GCL-ET had a total grid-connected operating capacity of 3,595.06MW, of which 1,560.92MW was grid-connected capacity of new energy sources such as wind power and photovoltaic power generation, accounting for 43.42% of the total. On the one hand, the company transferred part of the equity of the cogeneration project, and the proportion of installed heat and power capacity decreased from 75% at the end of the previous year to 56.58%, and on the other hand, it acquired the 583.87MW photovoltaic power generation project of GCL New Energy, started the residential photovoltaic business of Xinyang, and rapidly promoted the distributed development of industry and commerce. At present, the company has cooperated with state-owned financial institutions such as Yuexiu Leasing and Shandong Tiefa in the household photovoltaic business, and reached a consensus with relevant energy central state-owned enterprises to jointly help the construction of a new power system and thoroughly implement the comprehensive rural revitalization strategy. The company's industrial and commercial distributed photovoltaic business has completed the development of 905MW and the construction volume of 428MW, and the proportion of new energy installed capacity has jumped by nearly 19 percentage points in one fell swoop, and the gross profit margin and growth rate are in the leading position in the industry.
In terms of energy storage business, the company focuses on grid-side energy storage and industrial and commercial energy storage investment and development, focusing on Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Shandong, Chongqing, Guangdong and other provinces. In 2023, the company will complete 4.5GW/9GWh of grid-side energy storage projects, 31MW/62MWh of industrial and commercial energy storage projects, and operate 15.5MW/31MWh. In addition, the company's 2400MW Zhejiang Jiande GCL pumped storage power station project has started construction. Through the above measures, the company's asset structure has been further optimized, and its comprehensive strength has been significantly improved.
In the first quarter of this year, the company's renewable energy business continued to improve steadily, and the grid-connected installed capacity continued to increase. As of March 31, 2024, the company's total grid-connected installed capacity was 4,215.27MW, of which the grid-connected installed capacity of new energy increased to 2,181.13MW, accounting for 51.74%, setting a new record high.
The company grasped the new energy storage outlet, and added 1.8GW/3.6GWh of energy storage projects in the first quarter, and started construction of 0.95GW/1.9GWh. According to incomplete statistics, 11 new energy storage projects on the grid side are planned to be completed and connected to the grid before July 15, and the first batch of operation will exceed 1GWh. At present, more than 2GWh of new energy storage projects have been included in the provincial power planning, and a large number of high-quality user-side new energy storage projects have been reserved, with a strong development momentum.
Enriching C-end scenarios and growing integrated energy services
In 2023, GCL-ET will enrich C-end scenarios in terms of expanding energy applications. The company launched its own brand of "Kaixin Charging" for electric vehicle charging and swapping services. Combined with different subdivision scenarios, the integrated solution of optical storage and charging is output. In terms of charging business, in June 2023, the company reached an all-round cooperation with Huawei Digital Power on the construction of a liquid-cooled supercharging network, launched a model project of GCL's integrated integrated energy station for photovoltaic storage and supercharging in September of that year, and put into operation the supercharging station of Suzhou Yangcheng E-sports Stadium in March 2024. Next, the company will put into operation more supercharging demonstration stations. In terms of battery swap business, as of December 31, 2023, there are 69 battery swap stations in operation, focusing on the development and application of closed scenarios, fixed lines or areas of heavy trucks.
In terms of integrated energy services, the company maintained rapid growth. In 2023, the electricity sold by market-based trading services will be 24.784 billion kWh, a year-on-year increase of 24.9%, far exceeding the company's settled electricity. The cumulative management capacity of power distribution projects was 2804MVA, a year-on-year increase of 32.83%. The management capacity of the user side exceeds 14.27 million kVA. Participated in the Jiangsu Electric Power Adjustable Ancillary Service Market, with a cumulative valley filling capacity of 14GWh, and put into operation more than 45 comprehensive energy projects such as energy storage, distributed energy, microgrids, and carbon neutral energy stations. The adjustable load of the virtual power plant is up to 300MW, and the annual response load accounts for more than 23% of the total load in Jiangsu Province. The scale of carbon finance exceeded 25 million yuan, the cumulative trading volume of green electricity and green certificates exceeded 250 million kWh, and the carbon neutrality certification of four projects, including GCL Energy Center, Changshu North Hospital, GCL Plaza, and Seagate International Technology (Wuxi), was completed. The company's first batch of energy intelligent computing centers landed in Suzhou and Shanghai to promote the integrated development of "computing power + energy", empower the construction of new power systems, and help the green development of computing power economy.
Looking forward to the future, the company is committed to becoming a practitioner of new power system construction, doubling the installed capacity on the existing basis by 2025, and achieving the goal of 80% renewable energy, forming a high-quality asset bottom warehouse; committed to becoming a demonstrator of multiple energy application scenarios, working with ecological partners to build a green and low-carbon product matrix of "computing power +" integration, and committed to becoming a leader in comprehensive energy services, focusing on power sales and distribution, microgrids, carbon asset management and virtual power plants, through green "power+". Computing power" synergy to form a new core competitiveness in the energy industry.