Shenzhen, China, a fast-paced city, the prestigious 'Shenzhen Speed' highlights the distinctive urban temperament here. China PV, a big leap forward, the new installed capacity has been ranked first in the world for five consecutive years. The industry status of 'photovoltaic country'. When PV meets Shenzhen, the synonym of the two 'fast development' has also turned into a manufacturing enterprise with hoof and stability.
Entering new energy for nearly 9 years, with an annual income of more than 900 million, Shenzhen Kstar Technology Co., Ltd. handed over a brilliant transcript. What is the mystery of the company's rapid development? Targeting the future trend of 'parity online', How will Dacheng take advantage of the trend? Fan Tao, Secretary of the Board of Shenzhen Kstar Technology Co., Ltd., accepted an exclusive interview with this reporter.
China Energy News: In 2009, Kstar entered the new energy field, and now it has been 9 years. What is the overall revenue of the company's new energy sector? Is this development rhythm in line with the company's expectations when it entered the photovoltaic field?
Fan Tao: When entering the new energy field in 2009, China's position in the international PV market has become stronger and stronger, and domestic demand for environmental protection is also increasing. New energy has become a trend to replace traditional energy. Under such circumstances, relying on the company The original power electronic conversion technology involved in the photovoltaic business was a natural chapter. And at that time China's photovoltaic has experienced a big wave of sand, the market environment is increasingly optimized.
In 2017, the company's overall operating income exceeded 2.7 billion yuan. Among them, the new energy sector contributed more than 900 million yuan, more than double the year-on-year growth. In the domestic PV inverter counterparts, our growth rate should be the fastest.
China Energy News: What do you think is the reason for achieving the 'fastest growth rate'?
Fan Tao: When entering the photovoltaic field, Kstar chose its own familiar technology and focused on the photovoltaic inverter market. At the technical level, Kstar has a solid industry foundation in the field of UPS (uninterruptible power supply), which has accumulated for 25 years. Power electronics technology. Inverter and UPS are homogenous technologies. Therefore, although the company is exposed to new energy late, the accumulated time of related technology is still very long.
The core of UPS technology is inverter, AC/DC conversion, and photovoltaic inverter. So, the technical extension on this basis is very simple. Moreover, in the company's product layout, Kstar has never been Out of the core of power electronic conversion technology, UPS, inverter, electric vehicle charging pile built-in modules are all like this.
In this way, there is no need to find another research and development path, which saves a lot of research and development costs. On the other hand, in the case of unified core technology, the supply chain is also consistent. The company's three core products include data center key infrastructure products, new Energy photovoltaic and energy storage system products and electric vehicle charging pile products, due to the same technology, most of the core devices and front-end production processes are the same, which can fully share the supply chain platform. Product type is rich, raw material procurement and product production scale effect It will gradually expand, and the cost advantage will be highlighted. At the same time, because different products have similar production processes, the company can flexibly allocate production capacity among various production lines to cope with cyclical production peaks and respond quickly to market demand. The company can maintain a high level of gross profit.
China Energy News: With the overall decline in the cost of the photovoltaic industry, how much pressure do you think the inverter is facing in terms of cost?
Fan Tao: This is also a question that many investors will ask.
First of all, the proportion of the inverter in the cost of the entire photovoltaic system is not very high, so it is not the biggest part of the cost squeeze, but the inverter also contributes to the system cost reduction. In the past few years, we I have witnessed the inverter from a very high price level to the current level. This trend will not change in the short term, because the trend of the entire photovoltaic industry and even the new energy industry must be 'subsidy' and 'parity online', industry The demand for system cost and equipment cost reduction is clear in the upstream and downstream of the chain. The cost is reduced by technical means to reduce the price, so that the product can maintain a reasonable profit margin, which is the long-term development.
China Energy News: What do you mean by 'technical means'?
Fan Tao: First of all, equipment needs to adapt to the complex operating environment, and also needs higher over-loading capacity, and the product has to withstand higher voltage. These are methods to reduce costs and improve the profit of downstream customers from a technical point of view.
Secondly, the investment of photovoltaic power station is not only in the early stage construction, but also includes the subsequent operation and maintenance. Inverter products should consider the needs of later operation and maintenance in the process of design and manufacture. Therefore, our products are monitoring, fault diagnosis and other performance. I have done a lot of work, I hope to help customers reduce the cost and difficulty of operation and maintenance.
China Energy News: For distributed power plants, the demand for operation and maintenance should be greater?
Fan Tao: Indeed, compared with the ground power station, the most typical characteristic of the distributed power station, especially the household market, is the dispersion, the project size is small, and the management is difficult. At present, some enterprises engaged in large-scale operation and maintenance have emerged, which reduces the single operation cost. It is very smart.
In the context of rapid development of distribution, KSTA's current major revenue growth also comes from distributed, especially in the field of poverty alleviation. The company has done a lot of projects since 2016 and has accumulated a lot of experience. Although, 2015-2016 The company's revenue is still concentrated in the ground power station, but at that time we were already developing the string inverter, and also re-established the team of operation and maintenance and monitoring, insisting on walking on two legs.
China Energy News: Affected by the policy, there are predictions that the domestic PV market will shrink this year. Next, will the company strengthen its overseas market expansion?
Fan Tao: The domestic PV industry is the fastest growing in the world, with the largest scale. In recent years, the ground power station and distributed power station have grown rapidly.
However, looking at the world, the market difference between different countries and regions is still very large. For example, in Southeast Asia, the land utilization rate is not high, the ground power station has a large market space, and the household power station costs are relatively high, and there are fewer in Southeast Asian countries. In countries such as Australia, the PV market is fully developed and the demand for household PV is greater.
At present, the company has shipments in Southeast Asia, Australia and Africa. In the UPS field, the company has been operating abroad for many years and has a certain market base, so it will strengthen the overseas market development of photovoltaic inverters in the next few years. Being pushed forward.