Text: Huaxia Energy Network.China's photovoltaic development is in the midst of a turbulent process. As of 2023, the installed capacity of photovoltaic power generation will reach a new high, of course, at the same time, it has also brought a stage of overcapacity, and the technology iteration is at the right time, and the entire industry is caught in the fierce battle of "more wolves and less meat".
Under the great changes, photovoltaic management talents and innovative talents are also flowing and reshuffling all the time.
According to incomplete statistics from Huaxia Energy Network, nearly 60 senior executives of photovoltaic companies in the photovoltaic industry will change their positions in 2023; Coupled with nearly 100 people in 2022 and more than 80 people in 2021, there have been about 240 personnel changes in listed PV companies in the past three years.
Except for some retirements or retirements due to age or ability, behind the changes of most executives, it is not difficult to read a dark line of new technology iteration and new development opportunities led by talents.
In the list of many rookie companies, some photovoltaic bigwigs loom. For example, Xu Zhiqun, the actual controller of the new dark horse company Gaojing Solar, Xie Yi, the founder of Heguang Tongcheng, and even the name of Chinese photovoltaic tycoon Zhang Longgen (English name: Longgen Zhang) appeared in the distant Middle East.
When the big guy goes to the first, there are new opportunities in the industry.
Zhang Longgen: **100,000 tons of polysilicon project in the Middle East
Not long ago, a news that a polysilicon factory had been opened in Oman gave an answer to the whereabouts of Zhang Longgen, a giant in the photovoltaic industry.
In the Sohar Free Trade Zone in Oman, a company with an annual output of 100,000 tons of high-purity silicon-based materials, United Solar Polysilicon (FZC) SPC (hereinafter referred to as "United Solar") was born. According to a number of industry insiders, the person behind it is Zhang Longgen, who has served as a core executive at JinkoSolar (SH:688223) and Daqo Energy (SH:688303).
Zhang Longgen's personal experience is quite legendary. According to public information, he was born in 1964, has American nationality, has permanent residency in China, holds a master's degree in professional accounting and a master's degree in business administration from West Texas A&M University, and is a certified public accountant in the United States.
But in fact, Zhang Longgen was a loan officer at the Jiangsu branch of the Agricultural Bank of China at the earliest (1984-1991), and then worked in foreign companies for many years, and also promoted the listing of real estate company Xinyuan Real Estate in the United States, and has been a senior executive in photovoltaic companies since 2008.
From 2008 to 2020, Mr. Zhang served as the Chief Financial Officer and Director of JinkoSolar. In 2010, he led JinkoSolar's listing in the United States.
Since January 2018, Zhang Longgen has been working in Daqo Energy, successively serving as Executive Director and Chief Executive Officer of Cayman Daqo and Director of Xinjiang Daqo. From June 2020 to September 2022, Zhang Longgen was appointed as the vice chairman of Xinjiang Daqo, mainly responsible for the production and operation decision-making and daily operation and management of Xinjiang Daqo. In July 2021, Daqo Energy returned to A-shares, which was also promoted by him. This position was later taken over by "Young Marshal" Xu Xiang.
Zhang Longgen's tenure in Jinko and Daqo once overlapped, which also fully demonstrates his strong business ability. His annual salary in Daqo Energy is as high as 213750,000. In addition, he also holds 16.25 million shares** of Daqo Energy, accounting for 076% equity.
In August 2023, Daqo Energy announced the resignation of director Zhang Longgen and general manager Zhou Qiangmin. Although the announcement showed that Zhang's resignation was due to "personal reasons", the resignation of two heavyweight executives is difficult not to make the industry speculate that it is related to the company's recent sharp decline in performance.
Polysilicon** experienced two rounds of decline in 2023. Taking re-feeding as an example, at the beginning of February, it exceeded 230,000 tons, and by the end of the year it had dropped to 6230,000 tons. Affected by this, Daqo Energy's revenue fell by nearly 60% in the first three quarters, and its profit fell by nearly 90%. The company's personnel also fluctuated, with a total of 5 senior executives and core technical personnel leaving the company throughout the year.
According to industry experts**, polysilicon will be in surplus for the next three years. Nowadays, under the general trend of countries supporting the local industrial chain, leaving the domestic "volume" to the extreme, going overseas, to the Middle East, using China's technological and financial advantages to open up new markets, has become a new idea that some enterprises have begun to explore.
However, because the polysilicon industry is supported by the equipment technology and raw materials of the entire Chinese chemical industry, overseas production costs are also higher than those in China. Whether Zhang Longgen's polysilicon business can really take root in the Middle East in the future remains to be verified by time.
You Hongming: Develop the overseas energy storage market"The system cost of the energy storage project is closely linked to the project revenue, which brings huge business opportunities to the ** chain from China. In June 2021, You Hongming, then vice president of Trina Solar (SH:688599) and president of the overseas system business unit, publicly expressed his optimism about the future of energy storage at an industry conference.
Just a year and a half later, he left TRW to start his own business in the field of energy storage.
In January 2023, an energy storage rookie named Lanhai Energy (Changxing)** referred to as "Lanhai Energy") was quietly established, which is a new energy energy storage solution provider focusing on overseas markets, and its business includes industrial and commercial solutions, integrated storage and charging solutions for large-scale power stations and daily life scenarios, etc. According to industrial and commercial information, the chairman and general manager of Lanhai Energy and the legal person are shown as You, Hong Ming, and it has been verified that it is You Hongming, a former executive of Trina Solar.
You Hongming, a Canadian, served as Assistant Vice President of Trina Solar's Overseas System Division in 2016 and Vice President and President of Trina Solar's Overseas System Division since 2019. He was also a shareholder of Changzhou Tianchuang Enterprise Management Consulting Partnership (Limited Partnership), one of Trina Solar's "employee stock ownership platforms".
Trina Solar, known in the industry as "the largest PV EPC order in history", signed a PV power plant asset deal of about US$700 million with TPG's Ruisi**, which was won during You Hongming's tenure.
As the earliest photovoltaic giant to deploy energy storage, by 2022, Trina Energy Storage ranked eighth in the global market for energy storage system shipments with nearly 2GWh of shipments. With many years of experience in Trina Solar's Overseas Systems Division, Mr. You has extensive experience and resources in overseas market development.
At present, new energy storage is ushering in rapid growth around the world. According to the data released by the China Energy Research Society and the Zhongguancun Energy Storage Industry Technology Alliance, in 2022, the installed capacity of new power energy storage projects in operation around the world will increase by 98% year-on-year, and the scale will reach 307gw；It is conservatively estimated that the cumulative scale of new energy storage will reach 97 in 20270GW, with a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 493%。
Compared with the domestic market, the profit margin of large-scale storage and industrial and commercial energy storage system integration in overseas markets is significantly higher, but there are also certain thresholds, such as the need to be familiar with the local power market environment, master channel resources, and have greater risks due to strong contract rigidity.
You Hongming's overseas market experience has made Lanhai Energy's current development smooth: soon after its establishment, it has opened up important customers such as the United Kingdom, Spain, Italy, France, etc., and has accumulated billions of project delivery experience in the photovoltaic energy storage power station market, and has precipitated GWh-level potential orders.
Lanhai Energy has also received investment in the primary market. In June 2023, Lanhai Energy received more than 100 million yuan in Pre-A round of financing, led by Sequoia China, followed by CDH VGC (Innovation and Growth**).
Shen Chengyong: Join the perovskite development boom
With the rapid rise of perovskite company Renshuo Solar, former GCL executive Shen Chengyong has once again returned to the public eye.
Shen Chengyong, born in July 1988, graduated from Shanghai Jiao Tong University with a master's degree. Since July 2020, he has served as the executive president of GCL Group (Holdings)**, and has also served as a director of GCL Group, chairman of Jiangsu Xinhua Semiconductor, vice chairman of GCL Energy Investment Group, and president of GCL Capital.
In March 2022, GCL Integration (SZ:002506) announced the resignation of the company's director, Shen Chengyong. Soon after, public information showed that Shen Chengyong was appointed as the CEO of Renshuo Solar.
According to the official website, Renshuo Solar was established in 2021 by Professor Tan Hairen of Nanjing University, and its main business is the research and development, production and sales of new perovskite photovoltaic modules. In fact, Renshuo Solar was co-founded by Shen Chengyong and Tan Hairen. According to the calculation of Tianyancha information on Huaxia Energy Network, Shen Chengyong directly and indirectly holds about 23 Renshuo Solar637% equity.
Perovskite can be described as the hottest track in the photovoltaic field in China and even in the world.
After years of development, the conversion efficiency of crystalline silicon modules is approaching 26With a laboratory efficiency limit of 7%, there is limited room for the LCOE to drop after a 90% drop in 10 years. The efficiency of perovskite cells, which are more efficient (33% for single-layer perovskite cells and more than 43% for tandem perovskite cells) and cost-advantaged, has accelerated the industrialization process, and is even known as the "third-generation photovoltaic technology route", which is also bet on by capital.
According to incomplete statistics from Huaxia Energy Network, since May 2022, there have been 24 financings of domestic perovskite enterprises, with financing amounts ranging from tens of millions to hundreds of millions of yuan. GCL Optoelectronics, the earliest company to deploy perovskite, has obtained six financings in just five years, the largest of which is as high as 500 million yuan.
Shen Chengyong, a GCL executive, saw a bright future for perovskite, so he persuaded Professor Tan Hairen of Nanjing University to start a business together.
Following the official completion of the world's first 10MW all-perovskite tandem PV module R&D line in February 2023, the completion and release ceremony of Renshuo Solar's 150MW perovskite PV module project was also held on January 11, 2024. According to Tan Hairen, Renshuo Solar has broken the world record for conversion efficiency 7 times. At present, the R&D efficiency of its all-perovskite tandem cells has reached more than 30%.
The rapid development of Renshuo Solar has won the favor of capital. So far, two rounds of financing have been completed, and the financing scale has reached hundreds of millions of yuan. The financing institutions include at least 17 capital institutions, including Sanxing Capital, Zhongke Chuangxing, Sugaoxin Venture Capital, Gimpo Intelligence, Xianfeng Evergreen, Yunqi Capital, Zhongcai Industry**, Zhongke Advanced, Guohai**, Hengtong Group, Yida Capital, Dongfang Fenghai, Jianyu Group, Zhongying**, Hengbang Capital, Zhongtian Huifu, and Changshu Economic Development Holdings.
However, there is still controversy in the industry about when the industrialization of perovskites will really arrive. Shen Chengyong's perovskite business is in the development stage from 0 to 1.
It is worth noting that perovskites are only the tip of the iceberg of Shen Chengyong's current commercial landscape. At present, he is also the actual controller of Shanghai Donglan Leading Energy (Group)**. According to public information, Donglan Group was established in 2021 and has production and R&D centers in Guangxi, Chongqing, Anhui and other places, and has business layouts in photovoltaics, energy storage, supercharging, new materials and other fields.
Jin Xin: Jumped to distributed photovoltaics
Behind the rapid take-off of Skyworth PV, the former general manager Jin Xin has made great contributions. However, in December 2022, Jin Xin also chose to turn around and quit.
Founded in January 2020, Shenzhen Skyworth Photovoltaic Technology Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Skyworth Photovoltaic") is a grandson company of Skyworth Group, which initially focused on the field of distributed household photovoltaic, and then developed industrial and commercial photovoltaic, integrated smart energy management and other businesses on the power side. Skyworth Photovoltaic is jointly funded by Skyworth RGB Electronics ***90%) and the founder Jin Xin (10%), and Jin Xin is the general manager of Skyworth Photovoltaic. Jin Xin is a senior photovoltaic expert in the industry. According to public information, his bachelor's and master's degrees were studied at Nankai University, focusing on the direction of photovoltaic new energy materials; Ph.D. study at the world's top photovoltaic materials research institute in the Netherlands at the Debye Institute for Nanomaterials Science at Utrecht University in the Netherlands.
Before joining Skyworth Photovoltaic, Jin Xin successively worked in Hunan Gongchuang Photovoltaic Technology and Beijing Enterprises Clean Energy, involving the heads of technology, R&D, chain, marketing and other departments, and the highest position of deputy general manager.
With such a manager with outstanding professional ability, Skyworth's photovoltaic business took off rapidly by taking advantage of the outbreak of household photovoltaics. By 2022, Skyworth PV will be 119The revenue scale of 3.4 billion yuan has entered the top three in the domestic residential photovoltaic field.
However, Jin Xin quietly withdrew from Skyworth PV in December 2022. After leaving Skyworth Solar, Jin Xin joined Zhuhai Shangfang Clean Energy Technology Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Zhuhai Shangfang") as director and general manager.
Founded in 2023, Zhuhai Shangfang's business is similar to Skyworth Solar's, aiming at the design, construction, operation and maintenance, carbon trading and energy storage business of distributed residential, industrial and commercial rooftop power stations, and creating a smart energy operation brand "Guangwudi". In May 2023, Zhuhai Shangfang received an angel round of financing of 500 million yuan, and the investors are Huajin Capital and IDG Capital.
It is not surprising that Jinxin continues to deepen the field of distributed photovoltaics. With the rapid growth in recent years, distributed photovoltaic has become half of the photovoltaic power generation. According to the data released by the State Grid, in 2023, the total new PV capacity of 25 provinces and cities in China will be about 175GW, and distributed will account for 49% of the new PV installed capacity. Under the development direction of building a new power system with new energy as the main body, there is still a huge market space for the distributed photovoltaic market.
It is worth mentioning that Guo Jin, the chairman of Zhuhai Shangfang, is an angel investor and also serves as a director of Gaojing Solar. Although Jin Xin no longer works in Skyworth Photovoltaic, he still holds 3333% equity.
The new choices of the above-mentioned photovoltaic bigwigs can be said to start with grasping the pulse of the industry and digging new development opportunities, which corroborate each other with the overall technological iteration and development direction of the industry.