Building a new energy system and leveraging energy storage industries in multiple locations

On August 15th, Guangzhou issued the "Implementation Opinions on Promoting the High Quality Development of the New Energy Storage Industry" and held a relevant press conference. Guangzhou is actively cultivating new energy storage industries and will accelerate the improvement of innovative project funding mechanisms guided by enterprise demand, supporting leading energy storage enterprises to lead the formation of innovation consortia. It is worth noting that many regions have recently introduced support policies for the energy storage industry, while listed companies such as Midea Group and Zhiguang Electric are actively expanding their energy storage business.

Actively cultivate new energy storage industries

On August 15th, the Guangzhou Municipal Information Office held a press conference on "Promoting the High Quality Development of New Energy Storage Industry". Mou Zhiping, Executive Deputy Director of the Guangzhou Dawan District Office and Deputy Director of the Municipal Development and Reform Commission, stated that new energy storage is an important component of building a new energy system, a new power system, and an energy production, supply, storage, and sales system. It is an important support for achieving carbon peak and carbon neutrality goals, and also an important focus for promoting new energy formats and seizing strategic highlands in industrial development. In recent years, Guangzhou has actively cultivated a new type of energy storage industry, built a number of electrochemical energy storage power stations, power batteries, and key energy storage component equipment manufacturing projects, and emerged a group of advantageous enterprises.

At the press conference, Ou Ge, Deputy Director of the Guangzhou Municipal Bureau of Industry and Information Technology, introduced that the new energy storage industry in Guangzhou has accelerated development, and the product supply capacity has rapidly improved. It mainly focuses on the agglomeration of the middle and downstream industrial chains. There are now a group of key energy storage manufacturing enterprises such as Inpai Battery, Penghui Energy, and Zhiguang Electric, as well as a group of research and development platforms for battery materials and energy storage technology. Southern Power Grid is taking the lead in building a national level new energy storage innovation center, which will effectively drive the continuous expansion of the manufacturing scale of Guangzhou's new energy storage industry. At the same time, the construction of new energy storage projects is accelerating, and industrial clusters are gathering faster. According to incomplete statistics, there are currently 11 new energy storage projects under construction in the city, with a total investment of nearly 40 billion yuan. The output value after reaching the production capacity can exceed 100 billion yuan.

Building a technological innovation highland is one of the important measures for the high-quality development of the new energy storage industry. Sun Xiang, Deputy Director of the Guangzhou Municipal Bureau of Science and Technology, stated that Guangzhou has established a support system for the full lifecycle development of technology enterprises. A group of enterprises such as Southern Power Grid, Hongji Chuang Neng, Zhiguang Electric, and Ruxing Technology have mastered global leading technologies in fields such as ultra-high voltage, fuel cell membrane electrodes, high-voltage energy storage, and photovoltaic cell slurry, breaking foreign technological monopolies in some areas. Next, Guangzhou will accelerate the improvement of an innovation project funding mechanism guided by enterprise demand, and support energy storage leading enterprises to lead the formation of innovation consortia. Guide a group of key energy storage enterprises such as Rongjie Energy, Times GAC, Juwan Technology Research, and Zhiguang Electric to layout around key links such as energy storage batteries and energy storage system integration, leverage the "leading goose effect" of new energy vehicle leading enterprises such as GAC Aian, gather relevant lithium battery materials and battery manufacturing enterprises, and create an innovative ecosystem of upstream and downstream collaborative industrial chain.

Multiple support policies introduced in multiple regions

In order to further accelerate the high-quality development of the new energy storage industry, Guangzhou has developed and issued the "Implementation Opinions on Promoting the High Quality Development of the New Energy Storage Industry" by the General Office of the Municipal Government, proposing the overall requirements, 15 key tasks in four aspects, and 3 guarantee measures for the development of the new energy storage industry, striving to significantly improve the level of integration of new energy storage technology and industry, academia, and research The level of collaborative development between the upstream and downstream of the industrial chain has been significantly improved, application scenarios and business models have been continuously expanded, the inspection, testing, certification, and technical standard system have been improved, and the comprehensive competitiveness of the new energy storage industry has been further highlighted. The operating revenue of the new energy storage industry in the city will reach over 60 billion yuan in 2025 and over 100 billion yuan in 2027.

Recently, many regions have introduced support policies for the energy storage industry. The "Several Measures to Accelerate the Development of New Energy Storage Industry in Foshan City (Trial)" proposes to build the new energy storage industry into a strategic pillar industry of Foshan's manufacturing industry. On August 9th, the Foshan Municipal Bureau of Industry and Information Technology formulated the "Support Measures for Promoting New Energy Storage Applications in Foshan City", which will accelerate the development of new energy storage industries, expand new energy storage application fields and models, provide financial support for new energy storage projects, and focus on diversified technological routes.

In addition, policies such as the "Implementation Plan for the Development of New Energy Storage in Ningxia during the 14th Five Year Plan", "Several Measures to Accelerate the Construction of New Energy Storage Demonstration Projects in Guangxi (Trial)", and "Implementation Plan for the Development of New Energy Storage in Tianjin" have been successively introduced to support the development of the energy storage industry.

　Active layout of listed companies

The development prospects of the energy storage industry are broad, and listed companies are actively deploying. In July of this year, Guangzhou Industry and Investment Group, together with Guangzhou Development, Guangzhou Industrial Control, Guangzhou Metro Design Institute, Penghui Energy, Zhiguang Electric and other enterprises and research institutes located in Nansha District, Guangzhou, registered Guangzhou Energy Storage Group with a registered capital of 2 billion yuan, coordinated the investment and development of Guangzhou's energy storage industry, and established a new energy storage technology standard system around basic components, processes, materials, equipment, design, construction, and other aspects, Build a "chain leader" enterprise in the energy storage industry.

Comprehensive energy services are one of Zhiguang Electric's main businesses. The company actively builds energy storage capacity and established its subsidiary Guangzhou Zhiguang Energy Storage Technology Co., Ltd. as early as 2018. According to Zhiguang Electric, the company currently has an integrated production capacity of 2.7GWh. At the beginning of 2023, the company's Phase II (3GWh) factory located in Huangpu District, Guangzhou began construction, and is expected to be completed this year and put into operation early next year; The third phase (3GWh) is expected to be completed and put into operation by mid-2024. The company is currently developing and constructing a 200MW/400MWh independent energy storage power station project in Qingyuan, Guangdong, using the company's high-voltage cascaded energy storage system. It plans to complete the construction and put it into grid operation this year.

In recent years, Midea Group has launched a second engine while developing its core business in home appliances. Energy storage is one of the focuses of Midea Group's efforts. Utilizing its long-term accumulation in the field of air conditioning, Midea Group has successively launched related products in the field of energy storage and heat management facilities. Midea Building Technology, a subsidiary of Midea Group, has previously released multiple energy storage and thermal management products, covering three major scenarios: energy storage on the power generation side, energy storage on the transmission and distribution side, and energy storage on the user side. Recently, Midea Building Technology's 40kW liquid cooling units and 5kW air cooling units have been delivered in bulk. Midea Building Technology stated that in the future, it will continue to innovate energy storage and thermal management technology, develop industry-leading products, and provide more efficient, energy-saving, and intelligent solutions for the industry.

Source: China Securities Journal