In recent years, relevant policies have been introduced at the national level to promote the development of smart substations, and the policy process has ranged from the "dual carbon" policy, promoting the energy efficiency improvement of transformers, to promoting the digital and intelligent development of energy in 2023, providing a good policy environment for the development of smart substations.
According to the goals proposed in the "Outline of the Development Strategy of the State Grid Corporation", in order to improve operational efficiency, the State Grid will promote standardized design, standardized selection, modular construction, mechanized construction, and promote the bidding of substation equipment. During the 2020-2025 period, the State Grid plans to add and renovate a total of more than 7,400 smart substations. Overall, the new transformation of China's smart substations will continue in the future.
Intelligent substation refers to the use of advanced, reliable, integrated, low-carbon, environmentally friendly intelligent equipment, based on the whole station information digitization, communication platform networking, information sharing standardization as the basic requirements, automatically complete the basic functions of information collection, measurement, control, protection, metering and monitoring, and can support real-time automatic control of the power grid, intelligent adjustment, online analysis and decision-making, collaborative interaction and other advanced functions of the substation.
According to the analysis of the industrial chain of the forward-looking industry research, it is found that the upstream of the intelligent substation industry includes power equipment, intelligent components, system software, etc., and the midstream intelligent substation equipment and solutions mainly include three levels: station control layer, interval layer and process layer.
From the perspective of the participants in the intelligent substation industry chain, the three levels of the ecological map of the upstream core industrial chain link mainly involve enterprises such as Guodian NARI, Guodian Nanzi, Beijing Sifang, Zhongyuan Huadian, Xu Relay, and NARI Jibao, and the industrial chain ecological map is as follows:
During the "14th Five-Year Plan" period, major provinces in mainland China have also put forward development goals for the smart substation industry, and the policy content mainly involves smart grids, smart parks, and digital economy construction. The policies of smart substations in various provinces and cities are as follows:
This year is a critical year for the national "14th Five-Year Plan", and investment promotion is an effective means for local governments to grasp the economy and strengthen industries. At present, the mainland has formed a complete intelligent substation industry chain. The Prospective Industry Investment Promotion Group selected the following 30 companies through multiple dimensions such as establishment time, registered capital, and enterprise label: (the following rankings are in no particular order)
At present, three competitive echelons have been formed in China's smart substation market, among which the leading companies are Xu Ji Electric and Guodian NARI, with revenue exceeding 10 billion yuan in 2023. The second echelon is represented by Mingyang Electric, Jiangsu Huachen, Jicheng Electronics, etc., with a revenue scale of 10-10 billion, and the third echelon is listed companies with revenue of less than 1 billion and other unlisted enterprises.
Analysis of representative enterprises in China's intelligent substation industry
——NARI Technology Co., Ltd
NARI Technology Co., Ltd. was established on February 28, 2001. On September 24, 2003, it was listed on the Shanghai Stock Exchange, referred to as "NARI".
According to Qichamao, NARI is one of the three listed companies under the State Grid Corporation of China, and completed the reform of equity division in 2006. Guodian NARI consists of nine branches of power grid control, system control, power distribution technology, rural electrification, power technology, rail transit technology, electrical control, complete sets of equipment, Shenzhen Branch, Nanjing Zhongde Protection and Control System Co., Ltd. and Guodian NARI (Beijing) Control System Co., Ltd., Anhui Jiyuan Power Grid Technology Co., Ltd., and NARI Zhongtian Power Electronics Co., Ltd. Four wholly-owned subsidiaries, as well as Guodian NARUI Jidian New Energy (Nanjing) Co., Ltd., NARI Aerospace (Beijing) Electrical Control Technology Co., Ltd. is composed of two holding companies.
NARI focuses on the layout of four major business sectors, including smart grid, digital energy integration, low-carbon energy, and industrial interconnection, and promotes the deep integration of digital technologies such as artificial intelligence, edge computing, digital twins, blockchain, security protection, advanced information and communication technology, and control technology with energy and power technologies such as flexible DC, renewable energy friendly access, and source-grid-load-storage coordinated control, so as to further enhance core competitiveness.
On April 26, 2024, NARI released its 2023 annual report. According to the report, in 2023, the company will achieve operating income of 51.573 billion yuan, an increase of 10.13% over the same period of the previous year, a net profit attributable to shareholders of listed companies of 7.184 billion yuan, an increase of 11.44% over the same period of the previous year, and a net profit attributable to shareholders of listed companies after deducting non-recurring gains and losses of 6.95 billion yuan, an increase of 10.43% over the same period of last year, and basic earnings per share of 0.9 yuan.
Analysis of the development status and trend of China's intelligent substation industry
From 2020 to 2023, the number of bid-winning projects in China's smart substation industry has continued to increase, especially since 2022, the growth rate of bid-winning projects has accelerated, with a total of 326 bids won throughout the year and 353 in 2023.
According to IT orange display, from 2017 to 2023, a total of 93 financing events occurred in the mainland's smart substation industry, and the investment and financing activity was relatively stable. From 2017 to 2023, the financing amount will reach 22.9 billion yuan. There were 4 financing events from January 1 to June 11, 2024.
From the perspective of corporate financing areas in the smart substation industry, there are currently more financing events in Beijing and Jiangsu. At the same time, Zhejiang, Guangdong, Shanghai and other places also have intelligent substation investment and financing events.
According to the bidding trend of the e-commerce platform of the State Grid Corporation of China in recent years, Qianzhan further predicts the number of new and renovated smart substations of different voltages during the "14th Five-Year Plan" period. During the "14th Five-Year Plan" period, the market demand capacity of smart substations in mainland China was about 158.112 billion yuan. Among them, the market demand for 750kV intelligent substations will reach 45.369 billion yuan, accounting for 28.69%; followed by 500kV intelligent substation, the market demand will reach 38.274 billion yuan, accounting for 24.21%.
Prospective Economist APP Information Group
For more research and analysis of this industry, please refer to the "Market Prospect and Investment Strategic Planning Analysis Report of China's Intelligent Substation Industry" by Qianzhan Industry Research Institute
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