news

한어Русский языкEnglishFrançaisIndonesianSanskrit日本語DeutschPortuguêsΕλληνικάespañolItalianoSuomalainenLatina

produced by radar finance hongtu | edited by li yihui | deep sea

the photovoltaic industry chain is becoming less prosperous, and the leading photovoltaic inverter company sungrow is also under pressure.

recently, sungrow power supply disclosed its 2024 semi-annual report. in the first half of the year, the company achieved operating income of 31.02 billion yuan, and the revenue growth rate fell to single digits for the first time in many years at 8.38%; the net profit attributable to the parent was 4.959 billion yuan in the same period, a year-on-year increase of 13.89%. in comparison, the company's net profit attributable to the parent in last year's semi-annual report increased by as much as 383.55%.

in addition to the slowdown in growth, in the first half of this year, sungrow's energy storage system revenue, which has the highest gross profit margin, decreased by 8.3% year-on-year; the company's overseas business, which has been increasing its investment, also saw a sudden drop in revenue in the first half of the year, down 12.65% year-on-year, the first time since 2013.

the actual controller and chairman of sungrow power supply is 56-year-old cao renxian, who was once called the richest man in anhui by the media.cao renxian's career started in the 1990s. realizing the development prospects of clean energy, he resigned from his decent and stable teaching position at hefei university of technology and started his own business.

the university teacher's energy adventure reached its peak in 2011, when sungrow successfully landed on the shenzhen stock exchange and became the "first stock in china's new energy power supply industry." judging from the stock price trend, after years of silence, sungrow benefited from policy support for new energy. the company's stock price soared in the second half of 2020, from less than 10 yuan to more than 120 yuan in 2021. cao renxian also took the throne of anhui's richest man.

however, after a round of rapid expansion of production capacity in the photovoltaic industry, the industrial chain entered a period of deep adjustment, and sungrow power supply was affected from its performance growth rate to its stock price.along with the correction of the company's market value, on the 2024 hurun global rich list, the wealth of cao renxian and su lei was 41.5 billion yuan, ranking 536th, a decrease of 16 billion yuan from the previous year.

from a university teacher to the richest man in anhui

in the domestic new energy industry, many of today's billionaires were once grassroots people. through their own unremitting efforts over the years, they finally entered the billionaire club.

but cao renxian is a rare entrepreneur who gave up teaching to pursue business and is known as a scholar-type entrepreneur. public information shows that cao renxian was born in a rural family in hangzhou in 1968. he was admitted to the industrial electrical automation major of hefei university of technology as an undergraduate and continued to study until he became a graduate student. after graduation, he stayed at the school and became a young teacher.

during his teaching period, cao renxian's research direction was renewable energy, and he had published relevant papers. at that time, the new energy industry had not yet set off a wave in china, but his research on related disciplines made cao renxian one of the first people to see the potential for the development of clean energy.

in 1997, cao renxian, who had just gotten married, decided to resign from his teaching position and founded sungrow power supply in hefei. however, not many people supported his decision to start a business at that time. cao renxian once recalled, "at that time, the words 'photovoltaic power generation' were unfamiliar to most people. in addition, the job of a university teacher was relatively comfortable, so no one supported me to resign and start a business except myself."

at the beginning, cao renxian raised 500,000 yuan as start-up capital, rented two rooms next to a bathhouse in hefei, and began his difficult entrepreneurial journey.

according to public reports, in the first five years of its establishment, sungrow was basically in a state of "living off one meal and not the next", with few solar energy projects or new energy businesses. in order to survive, cao renxian had to produce some traditional energy products such as ups uninterruptible power supplies, and then invest in the research and development of photovoltaic and wind power inverters after making a little money.

despite the setbacks, cao renxian believed that the new energy industry would develop sooner or later, and that opportunities always come to those who are prepared. in 2002, when the northwest began to implement the bright project, cao renxian got his chance. sungrow took on the national "power delivery to rural areas" project, delivering solar power to areas without electricity in the west.

at the same time, cao renxian's investment in technology over the years has also entered a period of harvest. according to the official website, in 2003, china's first photovoltaic grid-connected inverter with completely independent intellectual property rights developed by sungrow was successfully connected to the grid in fengxian, shanghai, breaking the foreign monopoly; in 2004, sungrow's "photovoltaic/wind power generation control inverter system industrialization" project won the first prize of anhui science and technology progress.

it is understood that the photovoltaic inverter is the heart of the solar photovoltaic system. its main function is to convert the direct current generated by the solar cell module into alternating current, which is then connected to the power grid or used by the load.

after the photovoltaic industry opened up, in 2004, cao renxian began drastic reforms and decisively cut off the two cash flow businesses in the fields of ups and emergency power supply and other traditional businesses. sungrow officially became a photovoltaic company.

after concentrating its efforts on inverters, sungrow began to rise. by 2009, the company controlled more than 60% of the market share of china's new energy inverters. according to ifind data from tonghuashun, sungrow's revenue also soared from 100 million yuan in 2008 to about 600 million yuan in 2010.

in 2011, sungrow was listed on the shenzhen stock exchange. ten years later, in 2021, sungrow's stock price hit a historical high, and cao renxian's net worth reached 65 billion yuan on the hurun rich list in 2021, making him the richest man in anhui.

however, as sungrow's share price fell from its highs, cao renxian and su lei's wealth was 41.5 billion yuan, ranking 536th on the hurun global rich list 2024, a decrease of 16 billion yuan from the previous year.

sungrow's performance growth slowed down

looking back, over the past 20 years, the photovoltaic industry has experienced many ups and downs from its birth to its explosion, and suntech power has also fallen into crisis several times.

for example, in 2008, the us subprime mortgage crisis broke out, and the slump in demand in some european countries caused setbacks to the photovoltaic industry. in 2011, the "double anti-dumping" measures of europe and the united states once again hit the photovoltaic industry chain hard, especially the industry trough in the following year, causing sungrow's net profit attributable to shareholders to fall by 57.8% year-on-year.

not long after, sungrow encountered its strong competitor huawei.in 2014, huawei launched the first smart photovoltaic power station solution, which abandoned the traditional centralized inverter represented by sungrow power supply at the time and chose string inverters as the core, greatly improving operation and maintenance efficiency.

with strong technical and supply chain support, huawei's inverter sales accounted for 22.6% of the chinese market a year later, less than 2 percentage points behind the industry leader sungrow.

at present, huawei and sungrow have formed a duopoly in the global photovoltaic inverter market.according to wood mackenzie's "global photovoltaic inverter and module-level power electronics market share 2024", huawei and sungrow will continue to lead the global market in 2023, ranking first and second respectively. the two companies' photovoltaic inverter shipments account for more than half of the world's total.

in this regard, debon securities research report believes that the penetration rate of string inverters in large power stations has increased in recent years, and string inverters are more suitable for distributed photovoltaics, which will further drive the growth of the string application market.

however, according to sungrow's semi-annual report, based on the 2023 global photovoltaic inverter company shipment list released by s&p global, sungrow continued to rank first in the world.

at present, in addition to photovoltaic inverters, sungrow’s main products also include wind power converters, energy storage systems, new energy vehicle drive systems, water surface photovoltaic systems, smart energy operation and maintenance services, etc.

in terms of performance, in the first half of this year, the company achieved revenue of 31.02 billion yuan, an increase of 8.38% year-on-year; net profit attributable to the parent company was 4.959 billion yuan, an increase of 13.89% year-on-year. this growth rate has slowed down compared with the company's previous growth rate. in contrast, in the past two years, sungrow's revenue growth rate has remained in double digits, and its net profit has doubled for two consecutive years.

in terms of a single quarter, the company achieved revenue of 18.406 billion yuan in the second quarter of this year, a year-on-year increase of 14.74%; net profit attributable to shareholders was 2.863 billion yuan, a slight increase of 0.57% year-on-year.

as the growth rate of performance declined, the scale of accounts receivable of sungrow power supply further increased. as of the end of the first half of the year, the balance of accounts receivable of the company was 24 billion, an increase of 2.9 billion from the beginning of the year. in a telephone conversation with the agency, the management explained that one of the reasons was that the proportion of domestic revenue increased in the first half of the year. the payment cycle of domestic customers is generally longer than that of overseas customers, which also led to an increase in accounts receivable in this period.

the financial report shows that in the first half of the year, the company achieved revenue of 17.543 billion yuan in mainland china, a year-on-year increase of 32.97%; while in overseas regions, the revenue in the same period was 13.476 billion yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 12.65%. according to ifind data from tonghuashun, this is also the first drop in the company's overseas revenue since 2013.

among the two major business segments of sungrow power supply, the energy storage industry, in addition to photovoltaics, also saw a rare decrease in revenue in the first half of the year, down 8.3% year-on-year. in this regard, pacific securities said that the main reason for the company's revenue decline was the decline in prices of raw materials such as battery cells.

in response to the outside world's concern about whether there is a ceiling on the size of the energy storage market, sungrow's management said that there are many scenarios for energy storage demand, including an increasing number of user-side scenarios, so there is no energy storage ceiling yet, and it is expected to maintain a relatively high growth rate in the future.

however, in the context of industry involution, the domestic energy storage market has already staged a "price war". the "china new energy storage industry development analysis report (january-june 2024)" released by the energy storage application branch of the china chemical and physical power sources industry association (cesa) shows that the average price of energy storage cells will drop from 0.9 yuan/h to 1 yuan/h at the beginning of 2023 to 0.3 yuan/h to 0.4 yuan/h in mid-2024, a drop of one-third.

the report pointed out that the price war in the energy storage field first started from the field of structural oversupply of battery cells, which immediately triggered a continuous decline in the price of dc side systems, and then the price war on the ac side systems continued to fall.

wealth territory is expected to expand

the new energy industry has many sub-industries, and cao renxian’s layout is not limited to photovoltaic inverters and energy storage.

in december 2023, sungrow announced that it plans to start the preliminary preparations for the spin-off of its holding subsidiary, sungrow new energy, to be listed on a domestic stock exchange. before making this plan public, sungrow also announced that it plans to increase its capital in sungrow new energy by rmb 1 billion, increasing its equity stake from 82% to 82.94%.

tianyancha app shows that sungrow new energy was established in 2014 and is located in hefei city, anhui province, with a registered capital of 1.566 billion yuan. zhang xucheng, a director of sungrow power supply, serves as the company's chairman and general manager.

in the first half of 2024, sungrow's new energy investment and development business revenue was 8.955 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 18.45%, and its share slightly increased to 28.87%. this part of the business is managed by its subsidiary sungrow new energy.

it is understood that the current valuation of sungrow new energy has reached nearly 20 billion yuan, and cao renxian's wealth is expected to increase again once the listing is successful. however, according to sungrow's reply on the interactive platform on may 27, the spin-off of sungrow new energy is still in its early stages.

in addition to sungrow new energy, which is engaged in investment and development of new energy power stations, sungrow hydrogen energy, a subsidiary of sungrow power supply that focuses on the hydrogen energy sector, is also continuously raising funds.

according to the tianyancha app, sunshine hydrogen energy technology co., ltd., in which sungrow power supply directly holds a 74.29% stake, completed its a+ round of financing in february this year, with investors including hillhouse capital and zicheng investment. at the end of last year, the company had completed a 660 million yuan a round of financing, with investors including legend capital, hillhouse capital, eastern bell capital, china merchants venture capital and other star institutions.

the 2024 semi-annual report shows that sunshine hydrogen's flexible hydrogen production system is suitable for a variety of application scenarios in energy, electricity, industry, and transportation, and has been widely used in wind, solar, and water renewable energy hydrogen production projects in jilin, ningxia, inner mongolia, gansu, hubei and other places.

from inverters to energy storage, to new energy power stations and hydrogen energy, cao renxian has built a huge new energy ecosystem for the "sunshine system" he created. how these projects will pay off in the future remains to be seen.