2024-01-20"It's hot and curly! At the 2024 China Energy Storage CEO Conference, the guests talked about the current new energy storage industry pattern, and they all sighed.
In the past few years, in the repeated mantra of "impacting the new energy storage trillion industry", the scale of the new energy storage industry has repeatedly reached a new high. After the extensive development of the industry, the phenomenon of the doubling of the scale of bidding and the increasingly fierce price war has emerged - the new energy storage industry has encountered the growth troubles of "volume". In 2024, how to "roll" the new energy storage industry? Where's the new match point?
Market 'hot and curly'
The new energy storage market in 2023 is very hot and very "curly".
Relevant data show that the number of new energy storage enterprises in China is rising rapidly, and a total of 38,000 energy storage related enterprises in the country are established in 2022, 5.8 times that of 2021. According to CNESA DataLink2023 global energy storage database, in the capital market, new energy storage is also the "darling" - since 2023, a number of financing events have amounted to more than 100 million yuan, and the total financing has reached 53.4 billion yuan. The fields involved include sodium-ion batteries, flow batteries, PCS, portable/household storage systems, energy storage safety, battery recycling, intelligent manufacturing, virtual power plants, AI digitization, etc., far exceeding the total financing of the industry in 2022.
The heat continues to rise, the new energy storage industry ushered in the "Red Sea", and the competitive pressure is gradually transmitted to the market. According to the CNESA DataLink2023 global energy storage database, since the beginning of this year, the amount of bidding for battery systems, energy storage systems and EPC has far exceeded the level of the same period last year, the concentration of procurement entities is high, and the bid price continues to decline - in December 2023, the average bid price of energy storage systems fell to 0.79 yuan /Wh. Nearly halved from the beginning of 2023. This also means that the industry concentration is further improved, and the importance of cost reduction and efficiency is more prominent. Some respondents said they felt unprecedented competitive pressure and downward pressure on prices.
Behind the "internal volume" market, Shi Yubo, chairman of the China Energy Research Society, saw the challenges facing the development of energy storage in China: First, the global competitive landscape is increasingly complex. Second, the development of new energy storage technology routes is diversified, coupled with the energy storage market demand and application scenarios are more complex, and the future technical route selection and industrial layout accurate positioning challenges are greater. Third, China's new energy storage has not yet formed a sustainable business model, and the current energy storage profit model is still unclear.
The energy storage demonstration project equipped with the Gulf Stone wind Farm is the first new energy side distribution energy storage demonstration project in Guangdong province. Photo/Nanfang Daily
The energy storage demonstration project equipped with the Gulf Stone wind Farm is the first new energy side distribution energy storage demonstration project in Guangdong province. Photo/Nanfang Daily
How to break through the "volume"?
Although the "water temperature" of the market has changed, many participating companies said that they are still optimistic about the prospects of the new energy storage market. Zhang Yongtai, marketing director of the comprehensive energy Division of CRRC Zhuzhou, said that new energy storage as one of the main bodies of the new power system, its position in the power market will become more and more clear, and I believe that the future new storage market will still maintain a huge amount of investment growth.
With confidence, the industry is working together to find a way out.
When it comes to the direct reflection of the new energy storage market "volume" - price war, Liu Mingyi, director of the energy storage technology Department of China Huaneng Group Clean Energy Technology Research Institute Co., LTD., believes that there is no need to worry too much, "cost reduction and efficiency improvement is the eternal topic of industry development, but can not rely on malicious low price shoddy, but to achieve cost reduction through technological progress." He pointed out that, especially for small and medium-sized enterprises, calm down and deeply plough the subdivision field and fill the technology gap, which is a good opportunity to open up a new path in the competitive landscape of the industry head effect.
In addition to the technical level, Chen Jianfu, co-president of Guangdong New Energy Storage National Research Institute Co., LTD., pointed out from the market level that building a more accurate and close matching relationship between the diversified development of energy storage technology and China's complex and diverse application needs can lead the new energy storage industry to run out of the "inner volume" and create new profit growth points.
"No matter how good the technology is, it must eventually exert its value through application and form a good return mechanism." Chen Jianfu believes that this depends on in-depth research and mining of energy storage application scenarios, accurate analysis and distillation of the precision and differentiated requirements of different energy storage technologies and system indicators in each scenario, and research on the planning and design technology of large-scale application of energy storage.
In order to promote the in-depth docking and interaction between energy storage technology and industrial applications, Guangdong, a major province in the new energy storage industry, has taken the lead. Recently, China's new energy storage innovation center settled in Guangzhou. This is the only national manufacturing innovation center in the field of new energy storage, which will help Guangdong build a new trillion-level energy storage industrial cluster.
Matching supply and demand ultimately depends on an efficient market mechanism. In Shi Yubo's view, with the continuous deepening of the reform of the power market, the establishment of a market mechanism suitable for the participation of new energy storage and able to fully and reasonably reflect the diversified value of energy storage is the key to the commercial development of energy storage.
Where's the next match point?
The "14th Five-Year Plan" New Energy Storage Development Implementation Plan proposes that by 2025, new energy storage will enter the stage of large-scale development from the initial stage of commercialization and have the conditions for large-scale commercial application. "2025 goal" is in front of us, where will the next match point of the new energy storage industry be?
In terms of the development trend of new energy storage technology, Shi Yubo highlighted the key points for enterprises at the meeting. He suggested that we can focus on potential lithium replacement technologies such as solid-state lithium batteries, sodium-ion batteries, and water batteries; Compressed air energy storage, flow battery, hydrogen energy and gravity energy storage and other long-term energy storage technologies; Flywheel, supercapacitor and other short-time energy storage technology. At the same time, it focuses on supporting common key technologies such as energy storage system integration, security protection, intelligent operation and maintenance, and power station regulation and control.
In the application of technology, Ma Jinpeng, deputy general manager of Xi 'an Singularity Energy Co., LTD., believes that for diversified energy storage application needs, the future hybrid energy storage combination application will become the mainstream application form, "not only can play the advantages of various forms of energy storage, but also help reduce the comprehensive cost."
In terms of business layout, a number of interviewed enterprise representatives judged that after this round of industry reshuffle, enterprises with advantages in the field of segmentation will have greater chances to win. Among them, industrial and commercial energy storage is a hot spot.
Cao Wei, general manager of the energy storage Division of Sunshine Power Supply Group, said that industrial and commercial energy storage business models are diversified and income channels are richer. In 2023, China's industrial and commercial energy storage market is concentrated in East and South China, Zhejiang, Guangdong, Jiangsu is the best place for industrial and commercial energy storage development, the market proportion has reached 80%, and gradually develop to the surrounding provinces and cities. He said that he is optimistic about the industrial and commercial energy storage market, and Sunshine power has launched a deep integration of three power technology, AI technology, multi-income, high safety, and more worrying intelligent energy storage system.
Liu Weizeng, founder and chairman of Xi 'an Singularity Energy Co., LTD., believes that the underlying logic of industrial and commercial energy storage development is the daily peak-valley difference in electricity consumption caused by the natural habit of sunrise and sunset, so it seems that industrial and commercial energy storage market will continue to grow in the future. He said that in 2020, the company took the lead in releasing the intelligent energy block eBlock based on industrial and commercial energy storage application scenarios, and successively launched modular products.
Returning to the industrial development trend in 2024, Yue Fen, deputy secretary-general of Zhongguancun Energy storage Industry Technology Alliance, expects that the new energy storage industry will continue to expand at a high speed, and the industry's "internal volume" competition will intensify, but it will also promote the continuous improvement of policies and market rules, and the energy storage economy will be expected to improve, and the business model will be more mature and diversified.
There is no doubt that the new energy storage industry has entered the eve of transformation and rebirth. "Overall, the energy storage industry shows a prosperous state of a hundred flowers, energy storage is entering the stage of large-scale development from the early stage of commercialization, with the early stage of large-scale commercialization." Said Cui Jian, executive vice president of Xiamen Kehua Digital Energy Technology Co., LTD.
