Energy interconnection: How can the photovoltaic industry connect with "Internet +"

China Energy Storage Network: Although he has been away from university for many years, many of his subordinates still call Cao Renxian, general manager of Sungrow Power Supply Co., Ltd., "Teacher Cao."

Starting from scratch 18 years ago, Sungrow has now become Asia's largest photovoltaic system solution provider. Mr. Cao has experienced the ups and downs of the photovoltaic industry and has seen the collapse of major companies in the industry. He led Sungrow all the way, smoothing out the bumps and making a road. Now, in the tide of the Internet, he has fought through all the difficulties and set out again.

“We need the brains of the Internet”

The most eye-catching news about Sungrow in 2015 was its strategic cooperation with Alibaba Cloud, a subsidiary of Alibaba Group. In the future, hundreds of thousands of solar power stations will be connected to Alibaba Cloud and become "Internet +" power stations. Based on the "Smart Photovoltaic Cloud", the two parties are striving to jointly promote the transformation of the new energy industry to "Internet +".

As a traditional manufacturing company "focusing on new energy power equipment such as solar energy, wind energy, and energy storage", Sungrow has always focused on the production of photovoltaic inverters and wind power converters. Behind this step, there is obviously a well-thought-out strategic layout.

In response to this, Sungrow explained that "Sungrow's photovoltaic operation and maintenance experience and big data foundation as well as Alibaba's cloud computing will provide the best and most imaginative platform for the photovoltaic industry."

As the leader of Sungrow Power Supply, Cao Renxian has a profound and strategic understanding of this cooperation. He believes that "the core issue is that from the perspective of customer value delivery, the future competition of new energy companies requires access to the grid at a fair price, low-cost power generation, convenient power generation, and the realization of true free market transactions for energy, all of which cannot be separated from the Internet."

Cao Renxian believes that in the future, whether it is power system reform, smart city construction, or smart energy investment, information interaction is indispensable. The power of the energy Internet comes from the requirements of more convenient transactions, automated operation and maintenance, and cost reduction. In the end, the development of commodities must be based on the requirements of convenience and lower costs. The role of the energy Internet will become more and more obvious in the future.

He summed it up in one sentence: "For energy companies, whoever grasps the next round of energy information network and whoever grasps the key information points in the energy transformation process will have the potential to win."

Speaking specifically about the cooperation with Alibaba, Cao Renxian said that Sungrow has also benefited from the experience of its partner Alibaba, and will work closely together in particular in the areas of smart energy, power production, operations management, and big data analysis.

"What Alibaba brings to us is something different. Because they are a complete Internet company, and we are a traditional manufacturing company, the perspectives are different. They need data experience from the manufacturing industry, and we need Internet brains." Cao Renxian said that this combination is going well. "Now all the power stations we build ourselves have installed this system, and we are also actively promoting it to customers who use our inverter equipment. For example, related brother companies have established such a network platform."

Improving the efficiency of power plant operation and maintenance requires stratification

The “Smart PV Cloud” is, after all, a power station operation and maintenance management system. Operation and maintenance systems are not uncommon in the industry, but there is a lot of mystery in how to make them stand out.

Facing questions from the outside world, Cao Renxian believes that Sungrow's operation and maintenance platform has two unique advantages. The first is Sungrow's understanding of professional systems. Based on 18 years of experience, the depth of its understanding of the system is much deeper than that of ordinary companies. Secondly, Sungrow started with the key power electronic device - the inverter, to enter the operation and maintenance market. The most critical part of power station operation and maintenance is this "bridge".

"The inverter is connected to the solar panel on one side and the power grid on the other. Once this bridge is built, the data flow is controlled, and the information flow is mastered, efficient operation and maintenance will have the conditions to take the lead." With hardware technology in hand, Cao Renxian is confident in the natural advantages of the operation and maintenance platform. "By expanding on the basis of the intelligent hardware itself, the entire synergy effect is very obvious. This is also the starting point for us to enter the field of intelligent operation and maintenance."

Regarding the continuous influx of competitors in the field of power station operation and maintenance, Cao Renxian said with a smile, "Don't worry", because the actual operation and maintenance market is relatively difficult to operate. Judging from the performance of the financial statements, the underlying operation and maintenance still requires professionals to operate and maintain on site. "Don't ignore this part. Many people ignore this part now, thinking that everything can be done by the Internet in the Internet age."

"In fact, the improvement of operation and maintenance efficiency must be layered." Cao Renxian has unique insights into the field of power plant operation and maintenance. "From the implementation of on-site operation and maintenance, the middle is the analysis and operation of the management level, and finally the annual financial data performance analysis, it is a pyramid. To do real operation and maintenance well, we must do a good job of real-time manual operation and maintenance at the bottom level, then analyze the reports of the middle-level department managers, and finally evaluate whether the power plant investment return is successful at the top level. So, there are three levels."

He believes that the biggest problem in the field of power plant operation and maintenance is that many companies set too high goals at the beginning, which eventually leads to overly complex software and ultimately unusable. "Too much data is hard to see, where to identify, where data should not be uploaded, and who should control which data point. Many companies do not know these aspects."

Therefore, the information on the platform should be filtered in layers, and "not all information should be reported to the boss." Specifically, it should be handled in categories, and some issues can be resolved locally. For example, today there was a local restriction on delivery and thunderstorms, which belong to the operational level and are all resolved at the bottom level.

Cao Renxian believes that this is Sungrow's biggest advantage. "The layered operation and maintenance structure determines that only by deeply understanding the industry can we grasp the characteristics and key points of the industry. Otherwise, data will become a big burden in the end. It is transmitted every few seconds, and it costs money to store massive amounts of data."

Some of the statistics are used for comparison with the next power plant or other power plants. After the data is normalized, such as the normalization of sunshine standards, we can analyze why the performance of this power plant is worse than that of another power plant and how to improve it in the next step.

Cao Renxian compared most of the daily production management content in power station operation and maintenance to the daily necessities of life, but the more core content is learning, which is to master the learning curve and reduce errors for the next power station investment. "This is of greater value."

The greatest benefit of the Internet is in the early stages of a project

Just like when it cut off its lucrative power supply business and focused on the inverter market, Cao Renxian frankly admitted that Sungrow's strategic layout now once again has a taste of transformation.

However, he seems more rational about the surging Internet tide. "In the process of transformation, we must firmly establish our roots, which is industry + Internet, not Internet +. This will make it more solid and conducive to our sustainable development in the Internet era. Otherwise, it is easy to be short-lived, prone to bubbles and hollowing out." Cao Renxian said: "We understand it differently from others, and we are more calm."

"Flowers are so numerous that they dazzle the eyes." In the Internet age, many people rely on storytelling to get a high premium. But for solar power plants, once the story is told, it has become history because the investment has ended.

Many people forget to think with common sense in the fascinating stories.

For example, once a power station is built, its geographical location is fixed, the light conditions, land cost, temperature and environment are fixed, the inclination and spacing of the solar panels are also determined, and the equipment is a fait accompli. After that, the efficiency and benefits of the system are mainly a matter of operational reliability. Therefore, for the part that has already been invested in, it can only be patched up.

"The reliability of photovoltaic power stations must be designed, not operated and maintained." Cao Renxian emphasized, "Now we need to prevent bubbles and excessive reliance on computers and information means in the Internet era. The design capabilities of technology, principles and theories have not improved much."