Top Ten Dark Horses of Energy Storage in 2023
The energy storage track is hot, all kinds of capital are pouring in, the eagle hits the sky, the fish is shallow, and all kinds of frost are free. Although many parties in the industry are alert that energy storage is beginning to enter the cruel knockout stage, they still can't bear the "hot heart" of energy storage. According to public data, there were more than 150,000 energy storage-related enterprises nationwide in November this year, and nearly 40% of them, that is, 60,000 enterprises, were newly registered this year. In recent years, energy storage enterprises have been very busy, such as financing, refreshing IPO progress bars, expanding production, and going out to sea.
Under the new competition and elimination, some energy storage enterprises have built their own world in the industry by relying on the rapidly built core differentiated competitiveness, which we call "dark horse".
After the policy evolution and industrial cycle baptism, the energy storage competition pattern "card competition" has gradually entered a critical period. At present, the industry has not completely dominated. In the future, enterprises that continue to innovate technology, practice hard and accelerate market development may gain their own place in the market. For this reason, Black Hawk Photovoltaic has sorted out the "Top Ten Dark Horses" in the field of energy storage.
[Dark Horse One] Haichen Energy Storage: The former Ningde technical backbone founded a star unicorn with a valuation of nearly 30 billion yuan.
Haichen Energy Storage is a superstar unicorn in the field of energy storage. The core talent comes from Contemporary Amperex Technology Co., Limited, the global leader in power batteries. According to public information, the founder Wu Zuyu has worked in Contemporary Amperex Technology Co., Limited for at least 6 years. From July 2012 to November 2018, Wu Zuyu signed 67 patents in Contemporary Amperex Technology Co., Limited as the first inventor, involving current collectors, pole pieces and batteries in the field of energy storage. Wu Zuyu left Contemporary Amperex Technology Co., Limited in 2019 and went to Xiamen to establish Haichen Energy Storage, and took away many core technicians. In September this year, Haichen Energy Storage also paid the latter RMB 1 million as a penalty due to the dispute over the competition restriction of Contemporary Amperex Technology Co., Limited talents. At present, at least five of its core executives include Wu Zuyu from Contemporary Amperex Technology Co., Limited, which can be described as a "Ningde Department" that does not belong to Contemporary Amperex Technology Co., Limited.
In the short four years since its establishment, Haichen Energy Storage has completed six rounds of financing. In July this year, the total amount of financing in the C round exceeded 4.5 billion yuan, and another financing in the B round with a disclosed amount exceeded 2 billion yuan. These two rounds of financing alone exceeded 6.5 billion yuan. The "financing king" in the field of energy storage is properly valued at nearly 30 billion yuan, and is sprinting for the A-share IPO. In 2022, the shipment of energy storage batteries reached 5GWh, making it the first in the number of domestic electric energy storage battery delivery projects and the first in the growth rate of energy storage battery shipments. At present, the capacity expansion is accelerated in Xiamen and Chongqing. According to its capacity planning, Haichen Energy Storage will achieve an annual production capacity of over 100GWh in 2024, and fully achieve the annual production capacity of 135GWh in 2025.
[Dark Horse II] Ruipulanjun: Energy storage unicorn second only to Contemporary Amperex Technology Co., Limited and BYD.
Ruipu Lanjun is a "rich second generation" backed by the "Nickel King" Qingshan Group. It was founded in October 2017 by Xiang Guangda, the founder of Qingshan Group, the world's largest stainless steel manufacturer and metal nickel producer. It is an important layout of Qingshan Group in the new energy industry, and its main business is lithium-ion batteries. With the support and blood transfusion of Qingshan Group, Ruipu Lanjun has rapidly developed into a unicorn enterprise in the field of energy storage. In 2019, it delivered lithium batteries in batches. In 2022, the installed capacity of energy storage batteries reached 10.5GWh, with a market share of 8.8%, ranking third in the world, second only to Contemporary Amperex Technology Co., Limited and BYD. According to the Jost Sullivan report, the exponential growth of lithium-ion batteries from 2020 to 2022 made Ruipulan one of the top ten lithium-ion battery manufacturers in China in the same period. In terms of production capacity, it will increase from 2.3GWh in early 2020 to 35.2GWh by the end of 2022, an increase of over 10 times. It is planned to increase the production capacity to 77GWh by the end of 2023. In terms of capacity expansion in the future, Ruipu Lanjun's goal is to achieve a capacity of more than 150GWh by the end of 2025.
On December 18, 2023, Ruipu Lanjun was officially listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, with an opening price of HK$ 18.6 per share and a market value of over HK$ 40 billion. The company also became the first listed company under its parent company Qingshan Holding Group Co., Ltd.
[Dark Horse III] Haibo Sichuang: For three consecutive years, the installed capacity of China's energy storage system ranked first.
Haibosi was founded in Beijing in 2011 by Zhang Jianhui, a Tsinghua returnee who had a halo before starting a business. He was admitted to the Department of Mechanical and Electrical Engineering in Tsinghua University at the age of 17, and then admitted to the University of California, Berkeley in 2001 with a master's degree and a doctorate. After entering the society, he worked in National Semiconductor Company (NS) for 6 years, joined Smart Grid Group of Siemens (China) Co., Ltd. as CTO in 2010, and started his business one year later. In the early days, it started as a battery management system (BMS) for commercial vehicles. In 2016, the transformation seized the gradually developed energy storage track and entered the domestic large-scale energy storage market. In 2018, it won the bid for several substation energy storage projects of State Grid and China Southern Power Grid, and the energy storage system business began to grow. Downstream customers are mainly "five big and six small" power generation groups and two major power grids. From the establishment to the IPO, a total of eight rounds of financing were completed. According to the five rounds of financing with the disclosed amount, the total financing amount far exceeded 1.5 billion yuan. In 2021, the post-investment valuation of the F round of financing was 6.4 billion yuan. In order to further focus on the core technologies and products of energy storage, in 2022, the power battery system product business was transferred to Aidi Precision, an A-share listed company. After the divestiture, it officially rushed to science and technology innovation board in June this year, with an IPO valuation of 3.1 billion yuan.
Energy storage system is the core product of Haibo Sitron. From 2020 to 2022, it ranked first in the domestic market shipments of energy storage system integrators in China for three consecutive years. In terms of production capacity, from 2020 to 2022, the production capacity will be 573.44MWh, 1.30GWh and 2.63GWh； respectively; According to the prospectus submitted this year, Haibo Sichuang plans to raise 783 million yuan. Among them, 299 million yuan invested in the production and construction project of 2GWh energy storage system with an annual output, accounting for 38.24% of the total raised funds.
[Dark Horse 4] Wheat field energy: an energy storage unicorn with a valuation of over 10 billion.
Wheat Field Energy was founded by Zhu Jingcheng in 2019, focusing on the R&D, production and sales of energy storage inverters and battery systems. Founder Zhu Jingcheng had nearly 10 years of experience in the energy industry before he started his business, and worked in Shanyi New Energy, Arrow Power and Sonny Energy successively, mainly responsible for marketing. In the first year of its establishment, Wheat Field Energy received strategic investment from Qingshan Holdings, the world's largest stainless steel manufacturer and nickel producer. In May this year, it completed the Pre-IPO round of financing, with a financing amount exceeding 1 billion yuan and a post-investment valuation exceeding 10 billion. The investors included well-known investment institutions such as Haichen Energy Storage and Chaoxi Capital of Zhengtai Xinneng. By 2022, Wheat Field Energy has built 26 intelligent and digital production lines with an annual production capacity of 12GW, with an annual production capacity of 1 million sets of grid-connected inverters and energy storage inverters and 600,000 sets of energy storage batteries. Its products have covered Europe, Australia, North America, Southeast Asia and other markets, and its revenue exceeded 2 billion yuan in 2022.
In terms of future production capacity, in March this year, the project of expanding the production and research base of Wheat Field Energy Wenzhou Headquarters to 50GW was officially signed. It is estimated that the investment will exceed 10 billion yuan, and the annual output value will exceed 50 billion yuan after completion. On July 21 this year, the listing counseling record was accepted by the China Securities Regulatory Commission, and the counseling institution was CITIC Securities, which is accelerating the IPO.
[Dark Horse Five] Wotai Energy: It is expected to become the "second share of household storage"
In 2012, Yuan Hongliang gave up his job in Germany and brought two friends back to China to establish Wotai Energy, and chose the energy storage track. Since 2014, he has received nine rounds of financing, including Shi Zhengrong, who is known as the "godfather of photovoltaic", and Gaoyan Capital, a famous investment institution. According to the last round of financing, Wotai Energy was valued at about 3 billion yuan. The core products are household energy storage systems and components and industrial and commercial energy storage systems and components, which are applied to power generation, transmission, distribution, electricity consumption and other links of the power system. Since its establishment, Wotai Energy has set its sights on overseas markets, and started to open a "second battlefield" in China in 2016. The proportion of overseas income has always been higher than that of domestic income. Last year, overseas income still accounted for over 60% of the revenue. According to the data of IHS Markit, Wotai Energy ranked fourth in China and sixth in the world in terms of market share in the field of household energy storage systems in 2021. The business has covered more than 80 countries and regions, and more than 90,000 sets of energy storage systems have been installed. Wotai Energy submitted a prospectus to the Shanghai Stock Exchange on December 30, 2022, and planned to go public in science and technology innovation board. In August this year, Wotai Energy replied to the first round of inquiries. After listing, it is expected to become the second listed company devoted to household energy storage systems and components after Paineng Technology. In terms of production capacity, in 2021 and 2022, the production capacity of Wotai Energy was 427.49MWh and 1085.06MWh respectively. According to the prospectus of Wotai Energy, the IPO plans to raise 1 billion yuan, of which 430 million yuan will be used for the annual output of 70,000 new energy storage system projects.
[Dark Horse Six] Daqin Digital Energy: a dark horse that has been deeply cultivating overseas markets for a long time
Daqin Digital Energy was founded by Liu Yang in 2017. In the early days, it earned the first bucket of gold through the sales of photovoltaic modules. Later, it found talents from companies such as Shuangdeng and Paineng Technology to form a core founding team and began to accelerate the development of household storage business. It is one of the earliest enterprises in China to lay out overseas energy storage markets, and established its own brand Dyness. Its core products include household energy storage systems, commercial energy storage systems, RV batteries and so on. At the beginning of 2018, the first generation of household energy storage products was launched, and in that year, it successively entered the markets of Australia, Dubai, Belgium, Japan and Cambodia, and deeply cultivated overseas markets for a long time, and established professional sales and service teams in six overseas countries. At present, the installed capacity exceeds 120,000 units. According to EESA data, in 2022, Daqin ranked eighth in the global household storage system (battery) market application.
In July this year, Daqin Digital was able to complete the B and C rounds of financing, with a cumulative amount of several billion yuan, and its post-investment valuation was estimated to be nearly 10 billion. In the same month, it was registered in Jiangsu Securities Regulatory Bureau, which means that it is already preparing for the upcoming initial public offering sprint. In terms of production capacity, the total annual production capacity of Daqin Numeng in Taizhou and Suzhou has reached 4GWh.
[Dark Horse Seven] Fine control energy: Artes and Goodway are optimistic about the dark horse of energy storage.
Fine control energy was founded in September 2015 by Shi Agile, a returnee. Before starting his business, Shi Agile, the founder, had been deeply involved in overseas energy industry for 18 years, involving hydrogen fuel cells, new energy vehicles and so on. The company focuses on smart energy storage, power supply and hydrogen energy battery. In the eight years since its establishment, Jingkong Energy has completed seven financing, including four financing intensively this year. After completing the D-round financing of over 300 million yuan in September this year, the valuation has exceeded 3.3 billion yuan. Artes and Goodway made investments as early as 2021 and 2022, including Chaoxi Capital, which invested in Haichen Energy Storage, Zhengtai Xinneng and Wheat Field Energy, as well as local state-owned capital such as Su Gaoxin Financial Control. According to official website, a fine control energy source, it shipped 1.8 GWh in 2022, and has the most professional and largest container energy storage intelligent manufacturing base in East China. Airport special vehicle power supply market share is 65%, ranking first. At present, Jingkong Energy is the largest energy storage system integrator in East China. According to the official micro data of Suzhou People's Government, the existing production capacity of Jingkong Energy is 24GWh, and the planned production capacity of self-built land will reach 44GWh in 2024. At the same time, it will build the largest container energy storage system integration base in the Yangtze River Delta. At present, the company is accelerating the initial public offering process.
[Dark Horse Eight] Singularity Energy: a leading provider of distributed energy storage systems, with the definition of "modularity" as the industry standard.
The core founding team of Singularity Energy mainly comes from TBEA, a leading power transmission and transformation enterprise in the world. Its founder Liu Weizeng entered TBEA in 2004, working all the way from an ordinary engineer to the president of New Energy Research Institute, the general manager of its subsidiary and the chief engineer of TBEA Xinjiang New Energy Company. In 2018, Singularity Energy was founded, focusing on technical research and product development of core equipment in energy storage systems, including Zhang Xintao, general manager of its product line. From its establishment to the writing of this article, Singularity Energy has completed five rounds of financing. The investors include international data group Capital, Gaoyou Venture Capital and other first-line venture capital institutions. There are also Contemporary Amperex Technology Co., Limited and Haichen Energy Storage behind the investors, and the battery supply of Singularity Energy is basically covered by these two companies. In April this year, it completed the B round of financing of 700 million yuan, and the post-investment valuation has reached 3.7 billion yuan.
At present, Singularity Energy has leapt to the Top 10 of domestic user-side energy storage system integrators, and its distributed energy block energy storage scheme attracts large central enterprises including State Grid, China Southern Power Grid, China Power Construction Company and China Energy Construction Company. In 2022, the contract of Singularity Energy's cumulative project has exceeded 1.28GWh. By July 2023, Singularity Energy has put into operation 280 industrial and commercial power stations with a total capacity of 2GWh and 12 power stations on the source network side. According to its production capacity planning, it is estimated that the annual production capacity will reach 10GWh-15GWh around 2024.
[Black Horse Nine] Zhenghao EcoFlow: a portable energy storage unicorn invested by Li Zexiang, which hatched DJI.
Zhenghao EcoFlow was founded in 2017 in Wang Lei, DJI, and its core is deeply rooted in the subdivision of portable energy storage. At the beginning of its establishment, it was invested by experts and scholars such as Professor Li Zexiang, who hatched DJI. Since its establishment, it has completed five rounds of financing. The investors behind it include first-line investment institutions such as Sequoia China and Gaoyou Venture Capital, and Penghui Energy, the head echelon in the battery industry, also invested in Zhenghao EcoFlow. After the B round of financing exceeding 100 million US dollars in 2021, it was promoted to a portable energy storage unicorn enterprise with a valuation of 1 billion US dollars. At present, the core covers three product lines: outdoor power supply and ecological products (such as camping refrigerators and air conditioners), household electricity consumption and off-grid energy storage systems, covering outdoor convenient electricity consumption, personal and household energy storage, industrial applications and other scenarios. With Huabao Xinneng, which was listed in 2022, its market share is the first echelon. In 2020, Zhenghao EcoFlow's shipments ranked second in the world after Huabao New Energy. At present, its products have covered more than 100 countries/regions in the world, serving more than 2.5 million users. As early as 2021, Zhenghao EcoFlow signed a listing counseling agreement with CICC, intending to sprint the A-share IPO. In recent years, both revenue and market share are catching up with Warburg Xinneng, which ranks first. According to public data, Zhenghao EcoFlow's revenue in the first half of this year has exceeded 3 billion yuan, and its revenue for the whole year may break 6 billion yuan.
[Dark Horse 10] Sunlight Energy: the dark horse of energy storage founded by photovoltaic veterans.
Cairi Energy was established in 2017, and its founder and chairman Feng Li is a veteran of the photovoltaic industry. In 2004, Feng Li entered the photovoltaic industry with monocrystalline silicon manufacturing. In 2010, Shanghai Cairi Photovoltaic Technology Co., Ltd. was established to provide technical services for the whole line of batteries. In 2012, its business was involved in the investment, development and operation of photovoltaic power plants. In 2017, Cairi Energy was established to focus on energy storage tracks.
The core members of Cairi Energy have worked in the head companies of Guodian Investment, Jingke, BYD, Ruipu Energy and other industries, and have rich industrial experience in the energy and power industry. After 6 years' development, it has delivered over 2.5GWh energy storage system. The main products are power generation side, transmission and distribution side, industrial and commercial, household integrated energy storage system, smart energy operation and maintenance services, etc., which can be applied to auxiliary new energy grid connection, power frequency modulation and peak shaving, demand side response, microgrid, household and other scenarios, covering the entire ecological chain of energy storage industry. At present, the products have covered more than 30 countries/regions in the world. Cairi Energy ranks in the top ten in CNESA's 2022 global market shipment ranking of energy storage system integrators. In July this year, Cairi Energy announced the completion of the C round of financing led by Industrial Fulian and Sanhang Capital.
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