Photovoltaic companies are scrambling to recruit high-paying employees and are flocking to the energy storage track
[Copy link]
Let me share with you some news about energy storage talent acquisition:
Source: Energy Storage Power Station
Behind the rapid growth, the photovoltaic industry is facing a crisis of overcapacity. In order to expand business and connect the upstream and downstream of the photovoltaic industry chain, more and more photovoltaic companies are beginning to compete in the energy storage track to achieve the coordinated development of source-grid-load-storage integration and new energy systems, and drive sustained growth in performance.
After three decades of "golden development", the photovoltaic industry has formed a group of leading enterprises with advantages in technology, scale and capital. These enterprises are "battle-hardened" and have almost common market and channel resources with the downstream of the energy storage industry chain. They are well versed in the integration of the industry chain and are extending the energy storage industry chain vertically from the terminal market, becoming a competitor that cannot be ignored in the energy storage track.
At present, most photovoltaic companies mainly enter the energy storage track by deploying energy storage system integration and inverter businesses. A small number of photovoltaic companies such as Trina have extended their layout to the more upstream battery sector.
In 2022, there are 16 Chinese energy storage system integrators with global shipments (domestic + overseas markets) exceeding 1GWh. Among them, Sungrow Power Supply, Trina Energy Storage, Sunny Energy Storage, and Canadian Solar are all photovoltaic companies. In addition, BYD and Zhongtian Technology also established subsidiaries in the photovoltaic and energy storage fields earlier. Behind the madness -
The energy storage industry is also facing a shortage of talent.
"We are still arranging interviews in the early morning"
At 1:30 a.m., the HR of a company Xu Jing worked for sent her a message asking her to check the candidates she had interviewed the day before before arranging the next interview. After hanging up the phone, Xu Jing was no longer sleepy and got up to check the messages on a workplace social platform, fearing that she would miss any messages from job seekers. Working overtime until late at night or early in the morning to interview and "poach" people has been Xu Jing's normal work routine for more than a year.
Xu Jing, who has more than 10 years of work experience, is currently recruiting high-end talents for business R&D positions in energy storage companies. "Currently, it is difficult to recruit people in all functional lines, from R&D to production to sales. A high-quality candidate has at least three offers in hand. Among the high-end talents I have come into contact with, there are many who hold seven or eight offers at the same time.
"I just noted on WeChat that someone worked for a certain company, but after a while I found out from his circle of friends that he worked for another company. This kind of situation happens too often."
In order to quickly expand the team, a leading company even took the opportunity of offline industry exhibitions and hung recruitment posters at its own booth, saying, "We must expand the team first."
Companies are scrambling to recruit talent, and salaries are rising.
As many companies compete for talent, salaries in the energy storage industry have also risen. Whether it is a "war for talent" or compensation of hundreds of thousands of yuan, the reason behind this is the desire of energy storage companies for talent as they rapidly expand production. "Companies offer twice the price of employees, and this situation started last year. It is very obvious this year and may be even more obvious next year. " Liu Aihua, general manager of Hangzhou Kegong Electronic Technology Co., Ltd., believes that this is caused by the huge gap in application talent in the energy storage field. "For example, the real value of an employee may be an annual salary of 200,000 yuan, but in the energy storage industry, they can ask for an annual salary of 400,000 yuan. "
It can be seen that inverter manufacturers and photovoltaic module manufacturers were the first photovoltaic companies to enter the energy storage market, and some of them have already achieved certain results.
The reason is that energy storage inverters and photovoltaic inverters have a high degree of similarity in application scenarios and technical characteristics, so most of the companies in the track also come from the photovoltaic inverter industry; components are the link closest to power stations in the photovoltaic industry chain, and many power station developers are also interested in purchasing energy storage systems directly from component companies.
Among the inverter companies, almost all photovoltaic inverter companies including Sungrow Power Supply, Huawei, Kehua Digital Energy, Sineng Electric, Growatt, GoodWe, Sofar New Energy, Sanjing Electric, Magre Energy, Deye Power, Jinlong Technology, Aero Energy, KSTAR, Homa Power, AST, AISWEI, APEC, EnEnergy, and Shengnengjie have entered the market and launched energy storage inverters and energy storage system integration products.
Among them, Sungrow Power Supply is one of the earliest companies in China to engage in the energy storage field. In 2022, Sungrow's energy storage system achieved revenue of 10.126 billion yuan, and global shipments of energy storage systems reached 7.7GWh, ranking first in the world and third in China among Chinese energy storage system integrators in 2022.
Sungrow already has an annual production capacity of 20GWh for energy storage battery PACK and 20GWh for energy storage system. Sungrow has previously stated that the company's energy storage business adheres to the strategy of no battery cells. In addition to outsourcing battery cells, PCS, PACK, EMS, and BMS are all self-developed and produced. Regarding energy storage, Cao Renxian, chairman of Sungrow, once said, "A series of new formats and new industries extended from photovoltaics are also gradually taking shape, and they will all achieve explosive growth, especially photovoltaics plus energy storage, photovoltaics plus hydrogen energy, and photovoltaics plus automobiles, which are new growths that can be seen soon in the future."
Yin Rongfang, president and CEO of Shouhang New Energy, once said: "The growth point of new energy in the future will be energy storage, especially electrochemical energy storage." In terms of capacity construction, the first phase of the construction project of Shouhang New Energy's Huizhou production research and manufacturing base covers an area of 50 mu, with a total investment of nearly 800 million yuan. After it is put into production, it is expected to add 510,000 photovoltaic grid-connected inverters and 210,000 energy storage inverters. On April 10, the first photovoltaic inverter of the base was officially put into production.
Among photovoltaic module companies , Trina Solar, Canadian Solar, Risen Energy, JinkoSolar, and Chint Group are optimistic about the prospects of the energy storage track and are investing heavily. Longi and JA Solar are also involved in the energy storage field. Trina Solar ranked third in global module shipments in 2022. While module shipments are growing rapidly, it is also accelerating the layout of energy storage business. In the field of energy storage, Trina Solar's subsidiary Trina Energy Storage will have domestic shipments of more than 1.5GWh and global shipments of nearly 2GWh in 2022. It has successfully delivered a single 800MWh energy storage project in China, achieving a market structure of fourth in China and sixth in the world for energy storage integrators.
Trina Solar is one of the few photovoltaic companies with cell production capacity. It has now launched the 12,000-cycle energy storage Trina Cell. Trina Solar Chairman Gao Jifan once said, "Our goal is to enable energy storage to have a lifespan of more than 30 years, in sync with the lifespan of photovoltaics."
Canadian Solar ranks among the top ten in the world in terms of global production of silicon wafers, battery cells and modules. In the list of "Top 15 Chinese Energy Storage System Companies in Global Market Shipments in 2022", Canadian Solar ranks 11th. The energy storage business is expected to contribute to the second growth curve for Canadian Solar. From 20 to 22, Canadian Solar's energy storage business revenue will be RMB 53 million, RMB 1.41 billion and RMB 3.42 billion, respectively, accounting for 0.23%, 5.15% and 7.32% of the total revenue, respectively. The gross profit margin of energy storage in 2022 will be 12.0%.
Canadian Solar is accelerating its transformation into a system integration company with a "core". On August 29, 2022, Canadian Solar's energy storage system project started construction in Dafeng Economic Development Zone, Jiangsu Province. The total investment of the project is 10.2 billion yuan. It will be built in two phases. After reaching full production, it will form a production capacity of 20GWh battery cells and energy storage systems.
Risen Energy has laid out its energy storage track through its subsidiary Sunyili Energy Storage. In 2022, Sunyili Energy Storage's cumulative global shipments exceeded GWh, with a year-on-year growth rate of more than 500%. Among China's energy storage integrators, Sunyili ranked eighth in the world and fifteenth in China in terms of shipments in 2022. In terms of capacity construction, on January 30, 2023, Risen Energy announced that it would invest in the construction of a 10GWh high-efficiency new energy storage system in Ninghai County, with a total investment of approximately 2 billion yuan.
In terms of supply chain cooperation, on January 9, Shuangyili also signed a three-year strategic cooperation agreement with Haichen Energy Storage for the supply of 15GWh lithium iron phosphate batteries. In January, Risen Energy also signed a 1GW global strategic cooperation agreement with SMA Solar Technology AG, and the two parties will cooperate extensively in commercial and ground-based energy storage power station projects around the world.
JinkoSolar, as the second largest component company in terms of shipments in 2022, is participating in the energy storage business as a system integrator. It has currently mastered the core liquid cooling technology of energy storage. Other key components of energy storage systems, such as battery cells and PCS, will also have their own production capacity plans in the future.
Qian Jing, vice president of JinkoSolar, once said, "In the future, JinkoSolar will treat energy storage as a very important business, which is as important as the module business."
According to a promotional material from the Jianshan New District of Haining City, Jinko Energy's annual 12GWh energy storage system and 12GWh energy storage battery construction project have been included in the local key energy storage projects.
Chint Group owns Chint Anneng (household photovoltaic business platform), Tongrun Equipment (photovoltaic inverter and energy storage business platform) and Chint New Energy (photovoltaic module business platform). In February 2023, Chint Electric acquired the listed company Tongrun Equipment and injected the photovoltaic inverter and energy storage business assets that Chint Power was responsible for into Tongrun Equipment.
In terms of energy storage business, Chint Power will increase its inverter production capacity to 10GW by the end of 2022. At the same time, it can provide one-stop energy storage system solutions to meet the photovoltaic storage needs of household, industrial and commercial, and ground power stations, and has launched a 3.4MWh high energy ratio energy storage solution.
On February 15, Zhongli Group plans to invest in the construction of a 1GW photovoltaic module production + 8GWh new energy storage industrial base project and a 1GW "photovoltaic + modern agriculture" power station project in Jingzhou District, Hubei Province, with a total investment of 5.5 billion yuan. Zhongli Group stated in April last year that it would carefully consider the strategic layout and related cooperation matters in the field of energy storage based on the overall strategic planning and business development needs.
Longi Green Energy previously stated that it has no plans to intervene in energy storage manufacturing. In March 2021, Longi established a subsidiary hydrogen energy company, Longi Hydrogen Energy, and announced on April 10 this year that it plans to increase its capital in Longi Hydrogen Energy by a total of 500 million yuan.
JA Solar relies on leading enterprises for energy storage and has established a joint venture with Haibosichuang. JA Solar has a smart energy division, which focuses on three businesses: centralized ground power stations, industrial and commercial distributed power stations, and household photovoltaic energy storage power stations.
It is worth noting that upstream silicon material companies have also begun to deploy energy storage industries.
The leading silicon material company GCL Group is very optimistic about the energy storage industry and is working hard to accelerate the development of its energy storage business. Zhu Gongshan, chairman of GCL Group, once said, "In the context of the integration of power generation, grid, load and storage, the energy storage industry will usher in explosive growth. In the next three years, new energy storage will increase by about 80GW each year, and the cumulative scale is expected to reach about 230GW by 2025."
In terms of capacity layout, on June 21, GCL Group signed a cooperation framework agreement with the People's Government of Zhuhai City, Guangdong Province. The two parties will jointly promote cooperation in energy storage cells, energy storage PACK batteries, mobile energy, industrial fund cooperation, energy storage industry investment and other fields. Among them, GCL Group will deploy a 40GWh energy storage cell project in Zhuhai.
In terms of products, GCL can provide services such as energy storage system research and development, project development, EPC general contracting, energy storage power station operation and maintenance, and power station equipment packages. It has currently launched products such as intelligent string integrated energy storage system, Evolution series industrial and commercial energy storage, Evolution series household high and low voltage all-in-one machine, horizontal all-in-one machine, Honor series household split machine, etc. During the SNEC exhibition, GCL also signed a strategic cooperation agreement with Huawei on energy storage ecological industry.
In general, energy storage system integration and energy storage inverters are still the first stop for photovoltaic companies to develop energy storage business, but the trend of extending the layout to the upstream is gradually emerging.
Just like Trina Solar's layout of energy storage cells, Canadian Solar, JinkoSolar and GCL Group also have clear plans for cell production capacity, and the planned cell capacity is more than 10GWh. Such a large-scale cell production capacity, as well as its own huge photovoltaic business volume, is bound to once again shake up the existing pattern of the energy storage track under the development trend of photovoltaic and storage integration.
[Disclaimer] The article is the author's independent opinion and does not represent the position of Energy Storage New Theory. If there are any problems with the content, copyright, etc. of the work, please contact us to delete it.
|
提升卡
变色卡
千斤顶
京公网安备 11010802033920号
