Competition is not only about fighting and killing, but also about the future of the horse racing circle.
Written by |Stage.
Produced by |PV time
The main photovoltaic material link has been inexhaustible, and cross-border wind hydrogen storage has become the second position of enterprise competition. Photovoltaic storage is not separated, which has become a consensus in the photovoltaic industry. Over the years, photovoltaic companies have never given up their dedication to energy storage. After the "double carbon" storm was set off around the world, the domestic and foreign markets of energy storage ushered in an explosion, and the position of the super track was consolidated. For a time, the development route of major enterprises has appeared on the stage, and the industrial chain has gradually been supplemented in the process of enterprise fledgling. The same story is happening in the field of hydrogen. Industry experts point out that by 2050, hydrogen energy will account for more than 12% of the global energy mix, and global hydrogen demand will increase from the current 80 million tons per year to 53.6 billion tonnes per year. The China Hydrogen Alliance will account for 10% of China's energy mix by then. The bright future of hydrogen has attracted a large number of companies to plan ahead. Is this cross-border journey determined, or is it a test of the waters?
Icing on the cake.
From the perspective of cross-border time, the cross-border of photovoltaic main material enterprises is more like icing on the cake, and the cross-border time is mostly concentrated in the photovoltaic development period of 2020-2022. 
In recent years, LONGi Green Energy, known as "photovoltaic Mao", has not only realized the layout of production capacity in all aspects of photovoltaic and completed the process of capacity integration, but also laid the groundwork for hydrogen energy in advance.
Public information shows,In 2018, LONGi began to research the hydrogen energy industry chain, and after three years of technology accumulation, on March 31, 2021, LONGi and Shanghai Zhuque Investment jointly established LONGi Hydrogen Energy Technology Co., Ltd. in Xi'an
Recently, Zhuque Investment once again joined hands with Shaanxi Construction Engineering, Chang'an Huitong and Sente to establish a new energy infrastructure investment company.
According to reports, at present, LONGi Hydrogen Energy's main business scope covers water electrolysis hydrogen production equipment manufacturing and renewable energy hydrogen production system solutions. As one of LONGi's five major business segments, hydrogen energy equipment and other four major sectors have formed a "green power" + "green hydrogen" solution capability to support global zero-carbon development.
LONGi revealed on the investor interactive platform in October this yearIn 2022, the production capacity of LONGi's electrolyzer has reached 15GW, 17 electrolyzers were shipped in the first half of this year.
Li Zhenguo once revealed in an interview, "42% of China's carbon dioxide emissions now come from the power system, but there is still a large part of carbon emissions that are not directly related to electricity, such as the energy and chemical system." The introduction of green hydrogen as a secondary energy source is a necessary thing. ”
Participation in the link on hydrogen,Li Zhenguo said that LONGi will continue to maintain its research capabilities in hydrogen application, and at the same time establish its capabilities in hydrogen production equipment, technology and services for water electrolysis.
Although LONGi has done a good job in hydrogen energy, it has to admit that this is an unknown investment. Even the established hydrogen companies are still unprofitable in 2022.
This choice is related to the principle of technological innovation that LONGi has always adhered to. In terms of recent module shipments, LONGi is not in a hurry to ship, and has now slipped to the top spot in terms of shipments. The reason is that when friends choose to lay out the TOPCON technology route, LONGi chooses a long enough, but almost doomed road, the BC technology route.
It is worth mentioning that in the layout of cross-border hydrogen energy, Trina Solar, Antai New Energy, and Sungrow Power Supply have also chosen to advance to fields with high technical content such as hydrogen production equipment, and have achieved certain results. Among them, CHINT Hydrogen Energy has joined hands with REFIRE Group to release the hydrogen energy technology achievements it has achieved, including core technologies such as green hydrogen manufacturing equipment and megawatt-level hydrogen power generation systemTrina Solar announced earlier this year that its alkaline electrolyzer equipment had entered the mass production stage and had already received orders.
Jinko, JA Solar, and GCL have chosen to devote themselves to hydrogen production, that is, links with relatively low technical requirements such as using green electricity produced by photovoltaics to provide energy for hydrogen production.
For example, GCL officially released the hydrogen energy strategy of the listed company on July 29. The strategy includes two parts: blue and green hydrogen: the first phase will be built with an annual output of 2.3 million tons of synthetic ammonia, and the production capacity will be gradually expanded to 4 million tons per year, which can be 700,000 tons of blue hydrogen in ChinaIt is planned to build 100 integrated energy stations by 2025, with an annual production capacity of 400,000 tons.
Energy storage hot land
However, hydrogen is not the main battlefield for PV companies to cross borders, and more PV companies are gathered in the energy storage industry, such as Jinko, Risen, GCL, Huawei, Trina, Sungrow, GoodWe, etc.
In 2021, driven by policies, "new energy + energy storage" projects will quickly blossom across the country, which will directly stimulate the progress of photovoltaic enterprises to enter energy storage。However, the barriers to the energy storage industry are extremely high, and it is difficult to easily break through, such as the scarcity of upstream resources such as lithium, cobalt, and nickel, and it is difficult to control costs through the layout of silicon material production capacity like photovoltaicsThe technical level is complex, if the conversion efficiency in the photovoltaic industry determines the market of enterprise products, then the energy density of energy storage batteries determines the market of energy storage productsThe energy storage market has been formed for a short time, and a good market mechanism has not yet been formed, and the future uncertainty is high. 
For various reasons, photovoltaic companies have poured into the energy storage industry in large quantities, but they have acted conservatively. Among the photovoltaic companies that have crossed borders, the energy storage business is the most outstanding is Trina Solar. Trina Solar's energy storage business was established in 2015 and expanded its market to overseas in 2021, with the United Kingdom, the United States and Australia as its main target markets. According to the information on the official website, Trina's current products include liquid-cooled outdoor battery cabinets, non-walk-in energy storage battery compartment systems, and battery systems, and its business scope covers new energy side energy storage, user side energy storage, grid side energy storage and microgrid energy storage. After years of development, in 2022, Trina's energy storage business will become the second curve of performance growth, and it will acquire energy storage systemsIt ranked fourth in domestic shipments and sixth in global shipmentsof great results. According to the Bank of China** report, Trina Energy Storage's domestic shipments in 2022 will exceed 15GWh, with global shipments of nearly 2GWh, successfully delivered a single 800MWh energy storage project in China. In 2023, Trina Energy will accelerate its expansion into overseas markets, and in June, the first overseas 100-megawatt energy storage project will be successfully shipped, which will build an energy storage system with a capacity of 50MW and 102MWh for the north of England. In addition, in 2022, Trina Energy Storage (Chuzhou)** announced that it plans to invest 4.5 billion yuan to build a new energy storage battery project with an annual output of 12GWh in Chuzhou Economic and Technological Development Zone, including 3 lithium iron phosphate battery cell production lines and 2 complete sets of energy storage product production lines, with a total annual production capacity of 12GWh, of which 6GWh cells are directly sold as batteries, and 6GWh cells are produced internally as pack modules and then processed into energy storage systems for sales. However, even Trina Solar's 8 years of experience is not enoughJust stopped losing money。Among them, the annual loss is more than 10 million yuan. Jinko and GCL are also quite ambitious and have chosen to eat the core business of energy storage. According to public information, JinkoSolar began to enter energy storage in 2020, and signed cooperation agreements with CATL, Guoxuan Hi-Tech, and Ganfeng Lithium in 2021 to carry out in-depth energy storage layout. It wasn't until 2022 that Jinko began to establish an energy storage business company. According to JinkoSolar's 2021 annual report, JinkoSolar first chose to open up the market channels for residential and industrial and commercial energy storage, with a focus on China, the Middle East and Africa, Southeast Asia, North America, Australia and Japan. It is worth noting that JinkoSolar has set its sights on the core of the energy storage business - batteries. In April this year, Jinko established Zhejiang Jinko Energy Storage with a registered capital of 1 billion yuan in Haining, Zhejiang, and the company's annual output of 12GWh energy storage system and energy storage battery project also held a groundbreaking ceremony in July this year, with a total investment of about 5.2 billion yuan. In the semi-annual report, JinkoSolar mentioned that relying on its own production and channel advantages in the photovoltaic industry, the company innovates integrated photovoltaic and storage system solutions, and continues to develop in the field of building integrated photovoltaic (BIPV), and is committed to becoming a leading provider of comprehensive solutions. In June this year, GCL Group signed a cooperation agreement with Zhuhai City to promote cooperation in the fields of energy storage cells, energy storage pack batteries, and mobile energy. Among them, GCL Group will be deployed in Zhuhai40GWh energy storage cell project。In July this year, the first phase of GCL Group's annual output of 360,000 tons of lithium iron phosphate energy storage materials project was put into operation, and the first phase produced 120,000 tons of lithium iron phosphate energy storage materials, and by 2024, the entire projectThe 360,000-ton lithium iron phosphate energy storage material production line will be fully operational。The cross-border of photovoltaic enterprises represented by JA Solar Technology is not "calm" enough. JA Solar has chosen to establish a joint venture with Hyperstron, which currently mainly provides solutions such as residential energy storage systems, industrial and commercial energy storage systems, and source-grid energy storage systems, without involving battery production capacity. From a technical point of view,At present, there is still a lack of core competitiveness。In 2018, Risen Energy acquired Shuangyili, and with the blessing of Risen, in 2022, Shuangyili Energy Storage will have more than 1GWh of global shipments, with a year-on-year growth rate of more than 500%. However, Risen Energy is currently facing the poor performance of its main business, heterojunction technology.
Future prospects
Whether it is hydrogen or energy storage, it can solve the problem of consumption for new energy sources such as photovoltaic power generation. The coordinated development of photovoltaic hydrogen storage has become a hot topic in the industry. According to the data of the first half of 2021, the national photovoltaic industry curtailment is about 0600 million kWh, with an average curtailment rate of 21%。At that time, some industry insiders predicted that within two years, with the implementation of photovoltaic hydrogen and energy storage projects, the average curtailment rate of PV in China was expected to further decline. As of 2022, the utilization rate of photovoltaic power generation has reached 983%。With the continuous increase of photovoltaic installed capacity, the demand for hydrogen and storage continues to increase. The volatility of the photovoltaic market is greatly affected by policies, whether it is the installation subsidy or the "531" new deal, the installed capacity has obvious fluctuations. In fact, wind and solar hydrogen storage are facing this situation. In March this year, the National Development and Reform Commission and the National Energy Administration jointly issued the "14th Five-Year Plan" New Energy Storage Development Implementation Plan. The plan positions new energy storage as an important technology and basic equipment for building a new power system. The plan proposes that by 2025, new energy storage will enter the stage of large-scale development from the initial stage of commercialization, and will have the conditions for large-scale commercial application. In addition, the hydrogen business has also tasted reassurance in the policy. In recent years, hydrogen energy industry policies have been intensively introduced. Since the 14th Five-Year Plan alone, the "Opinions of the Communist Party of China on Completely, Accurately, and Comprehensively Implementing the New Development Concept and Doing a Good Job in Carbon Peak and Carbon Neutrality" have been issued to clearly promote the development of the whole chain of hydrogen energy "production, storage, transportation and use".The "14th Five-Year Plan for Modern Energy System" deploys hydrogen energy technology innovation and demonstration applicationsThe "Medium and Long-term Plan for the Development of Hydrogen Energy Industry (2021-2035)" has made systematic arrangements for the development of the hydrogen energy industry at present and in the future. At the same time, the local government is actively deploying the hydrogen energy industry. At present, more than 10 provinces, including Shanghai, Beijing, Shandong, Chongqing and Tianjin, have issued plans to provide support for the development of hydrogen energy and provide survival soil for enterprises. However, the cross-border of photovoltaic enterprises may face a double surplus situation. PV companies are currently suffering from overcapacity, and their performance growth slowed down in the third quarter. According to Tianyancha data, there are currently more than 100,000 energy storage-related enterprises, and more than 50,000 newly registered enterprises this year alone. According to the data of the Institute of Advanced Industry Research, due to the overheating of the track, the production capacity growth rate is obvious, the current domestic energy storage battery production capacity has exceeded 200GWh, and the overall capacity utilization rate has plummeted from 87% last year to 50% at present, while the capacity utilization rate of household storage batteries is less than 30%. Energy storage is not a unique scenery.