Recently, the sixth meeting of the Sino-French Entrepreneur Committee was held in Paris, in which new energy was repeatedly mentioned during the meeting. In particular, the French side mentioned that China has world-recognized expertise in a number of areas, such as batteries, new energy vehicles, and solar photovoltaic panels. Among them, Envision Technology Group from Jiangyin signed two strategic cooperation projects with SUEZ Group and Fives Group.
Envision has a valuation of nearly 180 billion yuan, made 3 unicorns, "the son of a wealthy businessman in Jiangyin" and other labels, and has long been well-known in the industry. At the same time, on the "2024 Global Unicorn List", its Envision Energy is valued at 85 billion yuan, an increase of 2 billion yuan in one year from last year's valuation of 83 billion yuan. Vision has become the business card of Jiangsu New Energy, and energy storage is likely to become the next "China business card".
Sino-French innovation cooperation,
Promote green and sustainable development together
Over the past 10 years, China's new energy industry chain has shown strong resilience, and with the support of this, the production, sales, export, penetration rate and power battery export volume of new energy vehicles have shown a continuous growth trend. According to the data, in the first quarter of 2024, China's new energy vehicle production and sales will be 2.115 million and 2.09 million units, respectively, an increase of 28.2% and 31.8% year-on-year. NEV exports totaled 307,000 units, reflecting a 23.8% y/y increase. In the first quarter, the cumulative export of lithium batteries reached 28.9GWh, accounting for 17.2% of the cumulative sales in the first quarter. New energy vehicles and lithium batteries have become a new benchmark for Chinese manufacturing to go overseas.
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As one of the most influential countries on the European continent, maintaining France's energy independence is a national strategy that France adheres to. Accelerating the development of the new energy industry is an important way for France's energy transformation and upgrading. Three years ago, French President Emmanuel Macron set a goal of producing 2 million new energy vehicles (including pure electric and hybrid) annually by 2030 to meet the requirement of reducing carbon emissions by 50%. It is reported that the battery plant built by Envision Power for Renault in Douai is the first and only battery gigafactory under construction in France, which has completed the capping and entered the equipment installation stage, and will be put into production in 2025. In June 2021, witnessed by French President Emmanuel Macron, Envision Power reached a comprehensive strategic cooperation with Renault Group, agreeing to provide Renault with 40GWh to 120GWh power battery products within five years.
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France is China's third largest trading partner and third largest source of real investment in the EU, while China is France's largest trading partner in Asia and seventh largest in the world. According to the statistics of the Ministry of Commerce, from January to February this year, French direct investment in China increased by 585.8% year-on-year.
China and France already have a deep foundation for cooperation in traditional fields such as aerospace, civil nuclear energy, agriculture and food, and in recent years, the two sides have continuously strengthened cooperation in new growth areas such as green development and scientific and technological innovation. During President Xi Jinping's visit to France, a number of enterprises from the two countries signed new cooperation agreements or memorandums of understanding, and the energy sector is still the core of economic and trade cooperation between the two countries, and the new energy industry represented by batteries has surpassed nuclear power to become the highlight of the cooperation between the visiting enterprises. The signed projects between China and France cover aviation, low-carbon mobility, intelligent manufacturing, environment, green development, green finance and other fields. Moreover, enterprises between China and France have achieved "two-way travel", two-way investment, complementary advantages, and opening up third-party markets and other emerging areas of cooperation.
For example, EDF and have been working closely together, and this time they signed a cooperation agreement on green hydrogen, integrated smart energy services and third-party markets, including hydrogen production, installation of photovoltaic panels in Saudi Arabia, and maintenance of low-energy public lighting in Wuhan. As one of the co-leading units of the China-EU Energy Technology Innovation Cooperation Hydrogen Energy Project, is committed to actively promoting the development of the hydrogen energy industry, and has made important breakthroughs in hydrogen energy manufacturing, coordinated development of renewable energy power generation and hydrogen production, and the construction of a green electricity conversion industrial system. Sinopec and TotalEnergies have also signed a strategic cooperation agreement to deepen their cooperation in the field of low-carbon energy.
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TotalEnergies and Sinopec have been working together for many years, particularly in the upstream business in Angola and Brazil, as well as in various sectors such as oil, LNG, petroleum products trading and engineering. The strategic cooperation agreement aims to further develop the partnership between the two companies and capture new opportunities by leveraging their respective expertise, with the two companies planning to collaborate on research and development in the areas of biofuels, green hydrogen, CCUS and decarbonization.
China and France have been working hand in hand for a while, and the cooperation between the two countries has become a model of peaceful coexistence and win-win cooperation between countries with different social systems. Today, France is promoting "re-industrialization" based on green innovation, and China is accelerating the development of new quality productivity. Looking forward to the next 60 years, China and France will innovate and cooperate to promote green development, which can make more new contributions to world prosperity.
Business giants in the energy industry,
The ambition of the second generation of enterprises
Envision Energy, located in Jiangyin, Jiangsu Province, is a subsidiary of Envision Technology Group, which is famous for its smart wind turbines, and ranks 34th on the "2024 Global Unicorn List" with a valuation of 85 billion yuan. There are two other companies under its umbrella, which are also on the list: Envision Power, which focuses on power batteries, and Envision Intelligence, which operates the "Energy Internet", with valuations of 67.5 billion yuan and 25.5 billion yuan respectively.
Zhang Lei, the founder of Envision, is a young post-70s generation, but in the "2023 Hurun Global Rich List", his net worth reached 35 billion yuan, surpassing his predecessor and Zhou Jianping, the founder of Heilan House, a hometown of Jiangyin, Wuxi, and once became the "richest man in Jiangyin".
Zhang Lei's father is also a successful entrepreneur in Jiangyin, mainly engaged in the machinery industry, Zhang Lei is the second generation of enterprises, but he did not choose to inherit the family business early, in 1999, 23-year-old Zhang Lei graduated from the University of Shanghai for Science and Technology, went to the London School of Economics and Political Science to continue his studies. During his studies in the UK, Zhang Lei worked in the London Energy Exchange Department of TotalOil Company and Barclays Bank in the UK, and engaged in energy financial derivatives related work for 5 years. In 2006, Zhang Lei returned to China with a team of 10 people, ready to roll up his sleeves and start a business in his hometown. Zhang Lei gave up joining the family business and founded Envision Energy in 2007, which also added a strong touch to the development story of the industry.
Image source: Envision Power's official website
Envision began to develop the core controller of the wind turbine by itself. In April 2008, Envision Energy's first 77/1.5MW (megawatt) prototype independently developed and designed by Envision Energy rolled off the production line, and a simple offline ceremony was held in the production workshop. The measured results showed that the power generation efficiency of the prototype was 20% higher than that of the traditional wind turbine, which also attracted the first wave of customers for Envision. At that time, Longyuan Power, the largest wind power developer in Asia, put the new wind turbine in Qidong Wind Farm for trial with the mentality of "try it out". Half a year later, China Longyuan Power ordered 33 1.5MW wind turbines from Envision.
As a rising star, Envision Energy has also found "inspiration" to compete differently with other wind power giants when serving Longyuan Power's orders. Due to the fierce competition of onshore wind turbines, around 2009, Longyuan Power was the first in the country to put forward the transfer and development strategy of "going up the mountain, going to the sea, and entering the low wind speed". Envision Energy's first target is "low wind speed". In the past, the three northern and southeastern coastal areas led the growth of the wind power market, but there are still large areas in China with wind speeds below 6m/s, and this huge blank market has exploitable value under the premise of improving the efficiency of wind turbine power generation. In 2009, Envision Energy launched its first 1.5MW 87-meter wind turbine low-wind turbine unit, and in 2011, the whole turbine was put into use at the first low-speed wind farm in China, Anhui Longyuan Lai'an Wind Farm. The grid-connected power generation of Lai'an Wind Farm marks the beginning of the era of low-speed wind power development in mainland China, and quickly attracts the attention of many developers. Envision Energy has become the vanguard in the development of this blue ocean market.
Image source: Visual China
In the field of new energy in China, there are not many people like Zhang Lei who are obsessed with new technologies. When he founded Envision, Zhang Lei said that he wanted to use software-defined wind turbines, and later, this concept was further upgraded to "software-defined energy", to create an "Android system" that belongs to new energy.
In 2013, Envision Energy launched the first software operating system in China's wind power industry, as well as applications for wind farm design, evaluation and management. In 2014, Envision further released the wind power intelligent management platform "Greenwich". "Smart wind turbine" and "smart wind farm" have become the two business cards of Envision. Since then, Envision has also begun to gradually expand its business scenarios beyond wind power. In 2014, Envision Energy entered the PV market and launched the Apollo PV platform for big data analysis and risk management throughout the life cycle of PV power plants. In 2016, Envision Group made strategic investments in ChargePoint, a company in the electric vehicle charging network, AutoGrid, a big data technology company for smart grids, and wholly acquired BazeField, a leading renewable energy management software company in Europe, and established Envision Intelligence in 2017. In 2018, Envision Group acquired AESC, a battery company under Nissan Motor, and entered the field of power batteries and energy storage. Later, the company changed its name to Envision Power.
So far, Envision Group has spanned new energy tracks such as wind power, lithium battery, energy storage, and photovoltaic, covering diversified business scenarios including wind turbine manufacturing, power batteries, energy management systems, and intelligent Internet of Things.
China's energy storage companies are accelerating their going overseas,
The technology layout is globalized
In order to achieve the goal of net-zero emissions in the middle of this century, the penetration rate of new energy is accelerating around the world, promoting the rapid growth of energy storage in the three major markets of China, Europe and the United States. Energy storage is also accelerating in other parts of the world, such as in Africa, Southeast Asia, Australia, etc. China's energy storage companies are accelerating their overseas expansion, and the target market has developed from household storage to large storage. For Chinese energy storage companies, going overseas is not only an incremental market, but also has a higher gross profit margin than that in China.
In addition to Envision, many other new energy companies in China have also performed well. French industrial giant Schneider Electric has signed a memorandum of understanding with Star Charging to establish a joint venture to develop products and solutions including charging piles, inverters, and energy storage systems for the electric vehicle and smart energy infrastructure markets in Europe.
In terms of unicorn companies, Star Charging, which has the same outstanding performance in the industry as Envision, is Star Charging. Star Charging is a unicorn in the digital energy field founded for 10 years and one of the leading charging operators in China. According to the China Charging Alliance, as of February 2024, the number of public charging piles operated by Star Charging has reached 477,000, second only to special calls. Schneider Electric is a French industrial giant with a history of nearly 190 years, focusing on energy management and automation. Schneider Electric has led the A round of financing of Star Charging, and later provided comprehensive solutions including supply chain management consulting, lean consulting, dual carbon management consulting and energy management for Star Charging.
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As a leading enterprise of power batteries, CATL also plays an important role in the process of new energy going overseas. According to CATL, CATL signed a cooperation agreement with CMA CGM Group (CMA-CGM) to give full play to their respective advantages in their respective fields to build a comprehensive and complete greenhouse gas solution. The two parties will focus on the planning and implementation of the carbon neutrality target path, carry out in-depth cooperation in the fields of electric ships, commercial vehicles, warehousing and logistics, renewable energy, etc., and jointly promote the development of green transportation industries such as electric ships.
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Energy storage must cross the technical threshold to go overseas, but the success of going overseas is not only technology. Chinese energy storage companies also need a global layout to support global project delivery and services. China's new energy companies should also continue to develop and progress in practice, make technology a core element, and deploy overseas business.
In the future, China's new energy and energy storage enterprises should continue to upgrade their industrial technology, continue to deepen globalization, realize the synergy of international talents, international production, international delivery and international services, continue to increase market share and profit margins, and at the same time feed back the domestic market to achieve better and faster development.
Source: Automotive Business Review, Energy Storage 100 People, Fang Zhi Jiangsu, Wuxi Financial Release
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