Global Energy Internet Investment Opportunities Emerge

China Energy Storage Network News : Relevant personnel from the State Grid Corporation of China proposed to build a platform for optimizing global energy allocation and formulate and issue a phased implementation plan for the construction of China's energy Internet as soon as possible. Li Shaojun, deputy director of the Minsheng Securities Research Institute, believes that by building a comprehensive investment and financing platform serving the global energy Internet, more investment entities and funds can be attracted to participate, which can provide broad investment opportunities for funds from the whole society. Cao Yin, chief analyst of energy Internet at Cinda Securities, pointed out that energy companies must consider how to build a distinctive business model in the future.

Suggestions on building a comprehensive investment and financing platform

Liu Zhenya, Chairman of State Grid Corporation of China, introduced that the Global Energy Internet is a strong smart grid with UHV grid as the backbone and global interconnection. Its essence is "UHV grid + smart grid + clean energy". UHV grid is the key, smart grid is the foundation, and clean energy is the basis. To achieve large-scale development, allocation and utilization of clean energy, it is necessary to build a platform for global energy optimization allocation, namely the Global Energy Internet.

During the two sessions, NPC deputies heatedly discussed topics such as building a global energy internet and promoting clean and green ways to meet global electricity demand. Shan Yecai, assistant to the general manager of State Grid Corporation of China, suggested that the country should make overall plans and formulate and issue a phased implementation plan for the construction of China's energy internet as soon as possible to achieve the optimal allocation of the environment and resources across the country.

Li Shaojun pointed out that among the options for building a comprehensive investment and financing platform, it is worth exploring the way of establishing a global energy internet development fund and participating in project investment in the form of a parent-child fund. First, by establishing an investment mechanism for sharing benefits and sharing risks, it can maximize the participation of funds from all parties in society and meet the huge, long-term and uncertain financing needs of the global energy internet. Second, it can achieve orderly docking between global energy internet projects and different investment entities, and coordinate the interests of different entities so that all participants can obtain reasonable returns. Third, according to the actual situation, by establishing a parent-child fund, the specific funding needs of different projects or the same project at different stages of development can be met in a targeted manner.

Dai Zhongchuan, deputy to the National People's Congress and deputy director of the Fujian Provincial Committee of the China Democratic National Construction Association, said that building and promoting the development of a global energy internet will surely lead to new breakthroughs in technologies such as ultra-high voltage, clean energy and smart grids, as well as market construction and market regulatory cooperation.

Business model needs to be reshaped

In the era of energy internet, facing the disruptive changes in the industry ecology, the business model of energy enterprises needs to be reshaped. Cao Yin, chief analyst of energy internet at Cinda Securities, pointed out that in the past, most energy utilities controlled most consumers in a region in a natural monopoly way, so there was no motivation to consider how to attract customers. But in the future, the core battlefield of competition among energy enterprises lies in how to use new technologies, how to build marketing channels that connect consumers, and most importantly, how to build a distinctive business model.

"The business model of energy internet can be divided into the Beta era, the 1.0 era, and the 2.0 era." Cao Yin told China Securities Journal reporters, "The business model of energy internet in the Beta era is network marketing and e-commerce. The business model of the Beta era regards the Internet as a media, which is an online extension of product and service marketing, similar to the early vertical industry portals and e-commerce forms of the Internet, that is, power generation companies, power sales companies, energy service companies and other related companies release product and service information through the Internet platform, which can be regarded as the "Taobao" and "Alibaba" of the energy industry.

"The Energy Internet Business Model 1.0 is a resource aggregator model," Cao Yin said. "In the Energy Internet 1.0 era, the Internet's role will go a step further from the media role of the Beta era to become an interactive platform that aggregates installed capacity and load resources and then optimizes their configuration. Using the Internet as a carrier, the decentralized users, differentiated energy, and diversified business entities in the energy system will be closely linked, expanding the scope and frequency of interaction among market members, reducing transaction costs, and significantly improving the convenience and presence of market members in participating in energy transactions."

"The era of Energy Internet Business Model 2.0 is the energy ubiquitous cloud model." Cao Yin pointed out, "In the era of Energy Internet Business Model 2.0, the boundaries between energy producers and consumers will be further eliminated, and the ownership and management rights of power generation assets will also be separated. Grid companies of various ownerships continue to transform and become exchange hubs for energy flow, information flow and capital flow. On the power sales side, due to the blurring of the identities of energy producers and consumers, grid resource users and ancillary service providers, power sales companies in a narrow sense will disappear, and the sales of energy and services will transform from B2B, C2B and other models to Cloud2Cloud, Batch2Batch and Peer2Peer models. Power sales companies will be further abstracted as platforms for energy exchange and matchmaking, and provide 'transaction+' value-added services."