During the two sessions this year, the energy storage industry was also one of the concerns of representatives and members. The reporter of Cailian News Agency learned from the energy storage industry that there are still big business model dilemmas in the distribution and storage of new energy at present, but with the gradual establishment of a reasonable dispatching mechanism and electricity price diversion mechanism, the comprehensive income channel of energy storage has been improved, and the economy and resource allocation efficiency of energy storage may be improved.
The new policy of subsidies issued in many places has exceeded 10 billion yuan
At present, the field of energy storage receives much policy support. According to statistics, in the past two years, governments at all levels have issued hundreds of policies related to energy storage. In the Guiding Opinions on Accelerating the Development of New Energy Storage, the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) and the National Energy Administration (NEA) clearly set the target of achieving the installed capacity of new energy storage by 2025 to reach more than 30 million kilowatts.
On February 22 this year, the National Standardization Administration and the National Energy Administration issued a notice on the Guidelines for the Construction of the New Energy Storage Standard System, which issued 205 new energy storage standards. The document points out that more than 100 key standards for new energy storage will be revised in 2023, and the new energy storage standard system will be initially formed in combination with the construction requirements of the new power system, which can basically support the commercial development of the new energy storage industry.
In addition to the standard, there is also financial support. Recently, the energy storage subsidy policies of provinces and cities have been implemented in a centralized manner, and the subsidy amount has increased.
On January 16, the Management Committee of Chongqing Liangjiang New Area issued the Special Policy for Supporting the Development of New Energy Storage in Chongqing Liangjiang New Area. According to the installed capacity of energy storage, a subsidy of 200 yuan/kilowatt-hour (the original version) was issued, and a single project would not exceed 5 million yuan; On January 28, Changzhou City, Jiangsu Province, issued the Policy and Measures to Promote the Construction of the Capital of New Energy. For new energy storage power stations with an installed capacity of 1 megawatt or more, the investors will be given a reward of no more than 0.3 yuan/kilowatt-hour according to the amount of electricity discharged, which will not exceed 2 years in a row; On March 3, Xiaoshan District of Hangzhou issued the Three-Year Action Plan for Power Supply Guarantee in Xiaoshan District of Hangzhou (2022-2024), which provides one-time subsidies to the investment and operation entities based on the energy storage power of 300 yuan/kilowatt for the energy storage projects with the annual utilization hours of no less than 600 hours completed during the "Fourteenth Five-Year Plan".
According to statistics, up to now, more than 30 energy storage subsidy policies are being implemented in various regions. The subsidy methods are mainly capacity subsidy, discharge subsidy and investment subsidy. The subsidy direction focuses on the combination of distributed photovoltaic. If it is a sustainable subsidy method, the amount is mostly 0.2 yuan - 0.5 yuan/kWh, and the subsidy period is 2-3 years.
Xu Jie, an environmental protection and utility analyst, told the Associated Press of Finance that because many regions require mandatory allocation and storage of wind and photovoltaic stations, the enterprise has increased the construction cost after including the allocation and storage cost. Under the current situation that the electricity market and the energy storage price recovery mechanism are not sound, poor profitability is the key sticking point that plagues the large-scale development of the energy storage industry, and the development of some new energy projects may be limited. Therefore, increasing subsidies is regarded as an important means to enhance the enthusiasm of energy storage investment.
"The subsidy policies vary from place to place and are related to the local financial resources, the strength of investment attraction and the demand for energy storage, but it will certainly improve the yield of energy storage power stations to some extent, and thus enhance the enthusiasm of industry investment," said Xu Jie.
From the market side, after the strategic value of energy storage has become the consensus of the industry, the investment is really hot with the stimulation of relevant policies. According to incomplete statistics, since 2022, there have been more than 120 companies in the energy storage industry chain that have announced the IPO progress, including system integrators such as Arrow Energy and Atlas, as well as battery companies such as Honeycomb Energy and China Innovation Airlines. According to GGII data, more than 30000 new energy storage companies have been established since 2022. Among the newly established enterprises, many central enterprises, such as the National Energy Group, the National Power Investment Corporation, Datang Group, and Huadian Group, also participated in the investment.
Since the beginning of 2023, the industry has maintained its high momentum, and the amount of orders signed by major domestic energy storage enterprises at home and abroad has exceeded 10 billion. At the end of February, Pulitzer announced that the holding subsidiary Hisida recently signed the 2023 Purchase and Sales Framework Contract with Daqin New Energy and Taizhou Daqin. Hisida will provide Daqin New Energy and its subsidiaries with lithium ion battery modules, cells and other products with a total sales amount of no less than 600 million yuan. In addition, Haichen Energy Storage, Nandu Power, Lanjun New Energy, Trina Solar and other enterprises have signed or won the bid for energy storage in 2023.
The performance-to-price ratio of lithium carbonate energy storage is expected to increase
From 2021 to the end of 2022, as the price of lithium carbonate, the upstream raw material of lithium battery, continues to rise, the pressure of energy storage cost reduction is great, which once restricted the rapid development of domestic energy storage industry.
The data shows that at the beginning of 2021, the average price of domestic battery grade lithium carbonate was 50000 yuan/ton, and after entering 2022, it exceeded 500000 yuan/ton, and climbed to about 600000 yuan/ton in November 2022. The price of battery grade lithium carbonate has increased by more than 10 times, and the price of energy storage system has increased by 30% - 50%. In this case, the initial investment of energy storage projects increased and the return on investment decreased, resulting in the postponement of many projects due to their lack of commercial feasibility.
Among the listed energy storage companies that have issued the annual performance forecast of last year, a few companies with performance losses said that the operating setbacks were related to the rising costs.
For example, Funeng Technology expects a net profit of 918 million yuan in 2022. The company said that the price of main raw materials represented by lithium carbonate rose significantly in 2022 compared with the previous year, resulting in the rise of the company's product cost. Although the company established a price linkage mechanism with its main customers, the adjustment of the price linkage mechanism with some customers did not meet expectations; At the same time, some customers with high gross profit slowed down their delivery, squeezing the company's gross profit space.
Inevitably, in the context of multi-party entry, the bargaining power of energy storage enterprises is generally weak, and it is often difficult to fully transmit the increase of raw materials to the downstream, which becomes an important test before us.
However, from November 2022, lithium carbonate prices showed signs of correction. This year, the situation is even worse. According to the data released by Shanghai Steel Union, the average price of battery grade lithium carbonate is 382500 yuan/ton at present. From 600000 yuan/ton when the price peaked in November last year to 400000 yuan/ton in March this year, the price of lithium carbonate has dropped by more than 30% from the highest level in just three months.
On the whole, in the face of challenges, benefiting from the promotion of macro policies and the strong pull of energy storage market demand, energy storage enterprises still delivered good performance responses, and more than 80% of listed companies that published the annual report forecast showed positive growth.
In the upstream of the energy storage industry chain, the performance growth was more prominent, and the net profit increased by more than 100% year on year, including 12 enterprises including Rongjie, Tianqi Lithium, and Tianhua Supernet. Among them, Rongjie is expected to achieve a net profit attributable to the parent company of 2.2 billion yuan to 2.6 billion yuan in 2022, an increase of 312.158% to 3707.33% over the same period of the previous year, the highest among energy storage enterprises.
At the downstream of the industrial chain, there are also 11 enterprises, such as BYD, Ningde Times and Penghui Energy, whose net profit increased by more than 100% year on year. Among them, BYD expected its annual operating revenue to exceed 420 billion yuan last year and its net profit attributable to the parent company to reach 16 billion - 17 billion yuan, up 425.42% - 458.26% year-on-year. BYD said that the total installed capacity of power battery and energy storage battery in 2022 was 89.84GWh, and the sustained explosive growth of the new energy vehicle industry was one of the main reasons for its substantial growth in performance.
The continuous decline of lithium carbonate price since this year will also lead to the decline of energy storage system price, which may promote the further explosion of energy storage capacity.
Qi Haishen, a senior person of new energy, told the Associated Press that lithium carbonate was in a downward channel, which was the result of a multi-party game, "The price of lithium carbonate has risen too high in the past two years, due to capital speculation and speculation. Even at the current price of less than 400000 yuan/ton, the upstream miners still have high profits." Therefore, he said: "A proper fall in the price of lithium is conducive to stimulating the market demand of energy storage projects and the construction of emerging power systems."
According to the data of the National Energy Administration, by the end of 2022, the installed capacity of new energy storage projects that have been put into operation nationwide has reached 8.7 million kilowatts, with an average energy storage time of about 2.1 hours, an increase of more than 110% over the end of 2021. The market generally expects that the installed capacity of energy storage in China has maintained a trend of rapid growth. According to the calculation of AVIC Securities, the global new electrochemical energy storage is expected to reach 46GW in 2023, with a year-on-year increase of 112.1%; China's new installed capacity was 13.8GW, up 119.7% year on year.
There is still a lack of commercial value to support the comprehensive income channel, which is under construction
In fact, the energy storage track has not yet excavated enough "treasures". Industry insiders believe that the failure of energy storage to further open the downstream market is still due to the single source of income and the lack of sufficient commercial interest support.
At the two sessions of this year, Zhang Tianren, the representative of the National People's Congress and chairman of Tianneng Holding Group, proposed in the proposal that at present, the business model of domestic energy storage power stations is relatively single. The configuration of energy storage power stations on the power generation side mainly depends on reducing the power rejection rate, improving the power generation efficiency and increasing the income; The revenue of the shared energy storage power station on the user side mainly comes from the peak-valley price difference. Because the peak-valley price difference is affected by the fluctuation of electricity price and the purchase of electricity on behalf of the grid, the overall revenue of the power station is unstable; In addition, most of the profits of foreign energy storage power stations come from electricity market transactions. At present, China cannot directly participate in electricity spot transactions.
Song Hailiang, member of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference and chairman of China Energy Construction Corporation, also holds a similar view. He believes that the current new energy storage electricity price mechanism and profit model are not clear, and the income mode is relatively simple, which affects the enthusiasm of the project investment.
According to the "Research Report on the Operation of New Energy Distribution and Storage" released by the end of 2022, the average equivalent utilization coefficient of domestic electrochemical energy storage projects is only 12.2%. The utilization coefficient of new energy distribution and storage is only 6.1%. Behind the lower level figures, there is a huge resource mismatch and waste in the allocation and storage of new energy.
Xu Jie told the Associated Press that how to run the business model of configuring energy storage on the new energy power generation side is the biggest problem on the development of the industry. "Most of the energy storage projects that have been built in the past have not yet formed a stable and reasonable income model, the high construction cost and the low income do not match completely, and there is a lack of reasonable scheduling mechanism and electricity price diversion mechanism, and the mandatory allocation and storage of new energy is not economic."
However, it further pointed out that with the improvement of industrial incentive and guidance policies, this situation has improved, and the comprehensive income of user-side energy storage has increased, "For the first time, the time-of-use electricity price mechanism has been adjusted in many parts of the country, which has reasonably widened the price difference between peak and valley prices, and the profit of arbitrage between peak and valley prices has been higher; secondly, the market mechanism of electric power auxiliary services has been continuously improved, and the income sources of large energy storage have become richer, such as the income from providing auxiliary services, capacity leasing, capacity compensation, etc."
In response to the above-mentioned problem of new energy storage, Zhang Tianren suggested that the implementation rules for the management of user-side energy storage access and acceptance should be issued as soon as possible, the glass wall of "partition wall for electricity sales" should be broken down, the basic capacity electricity charges of medium and large energy storage projects should be reduced or canceled, and the energy storage projects should be supported to participate in the power market as independent market entities.
Song Hailiang suggested to explore the establishment of a new energy storage capacity compensation mechanism and capacity market to reasonably reflect the installed economic benefits of energy storage facilities. Promote the spot market to gradually loosen the market price ceiling constraint, allow high-cost flexible resources such as energy storage to make profits through short-term high electricity prices, and clarify the market access of electric energy storage auxiliary services.
Qi Haishen told the Associated Press that the construction of the new energy storage system needs to use advanced power management, power communication and other resources for coordinated operation services, so as to coordinate with the power grid to form an organic whole, realize the coordination and optimal operation of a large number of multi-dimensional power resources, and better assist the power grid to play its resource characteristics, and provide multiple types and multi-level regulation response services for the power grid and users.
"How to make market users follow the market price signal or respond to the corresponding incentive mechanism for power services is not only to change the behavior of the conventional power consumption mode, but also to break down some trans-provincial and trans-regional power agreement barriers, so as to achieve the flexibility and efficiency of the energy storage system to accept the dispatching and regulation services, reduce resource waste and human intervention, and truly achieve the smooth energy supply under the unified national power market." Qi Haishen said, "The continuous expansion of the installed scale of photovoltaic wind power and other new energy power generation has become a definite development trend and opportunity in the world. It is a must, not a choice, to provide peak shaving, frequency modulation and other supporting services and build new energy storage systems."
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