China's photovoltaic industry's spoilers

How to surpass Suntech, LDK? Ju Heng's answer is: "There is nothing new under the sun", which is different from the gameplay. This ancient proverb has almost been fulfilled again. In March of this year, when Liu Xiaoyu, Rothschild's joint director in China, looked for an investment project, a friend had recommended him to a photovoltaic company. Hearing the word “photovoltaic”, Liu immediately refused. China has flooded hundreds of players in large and small areas in photovoltaic manufacturing, and has become a new camp for many speculators. To say there is no bubble, no one really believes.

But this company called Juheng is not the same. The technology route it chooses is neither well-known polysilicon nor the film that First Solar is advancing, but a third-generation photovoltaic power generation technology called High Power Generation. Liu Xiaoyu decided to take a look.

He was immediately attracted by this company. After talking to Rong Gang, the founder and CEO of Ju Heng, Liu felt that Ju Heng was in line with the standard he wanted to invest in. The polyconcentration technology focused on this technology is far higher than the polysilicon battery, and the concentrator battery has less consumables, high efficiency, small footprint, and short energy reimbursement time—while polysilicon has been criticized for the fact that the entire production process is With high energy consumption, energy repayment time is longer. The most important point is that Juheng has already had operational records of commercial projects and installed 200KW in Qingdao in early 2011.

In China, a photovoltaic industry with a short history of only a few years, Rong Gang is another person who is determined to be a proprietor of Prometheus who is tied up in Greek mythology. He once made a small independent photovoltaic power station in Xinjiang in the oil field, and became the first order buyer in the country in 2006. Rong Gang recalls that at the time of doing PV power plant, he accumulated a lot of experience in system integration, especially the experience of PV technology, such as how to design and how to reduce the starting current. Later, Rong Gang dug up the current CTO Wang Shitao from UT Starcom. Rong Gang and Wang Shitao were extremely infatuated with technology. They once drove cars in the United States from east to west, from south to north, and went home. Visit companies in systems integration, photovoltaic components, and inverter industries. "I am full of curiosity about the solar industry. I will read all of the exhibitions. We must ask clearly what each booth does." Rong Gang said.

In 2007, Ronggang did tens of millions of revenues for photovoltaic power plant system projects, but he felt that there was a certain technical content for the project, but there was no threshold. He hoped to make the transition. Rong Gang chose two directions: micro-inverters and poly. Photocell.

“I later said that we can only do one thing and we cannot do two things at the same time.” Rong Gang told Global Entrepreneur. In 2008, Polyheng had already made a prototype of a micro-inverter, but he still stopped the project decisively and began to concentrate on high-power concentrating power generation.

The positioning of the Chinese-style innovation is a "concentrator system integrator," including concentrator modules, brackets, and trackers, but it does not make battery chips. Rong Gang explained that there are more companies in the world that can now do a good job of battery chips than companies that can do integrated systems. Therefore, there is an advantage in doing so from the outside. At present, Juheng has selected 4 to 5 battery manufacturers with 40% photoelectric conversion rate as their suppliers.

The biggest difficulty in spotlighting is the integration of multiple disciplines such as semiconductors, thermodynamics, optics, machinery, materials, and control. Moreover, almost all of the key materials used in the concentrating system have not been applied in the photovoltaic field. For the supply of raw materials, Juheng needs to build a supply chain from scratch. This is not an easy process.

Rong Gang took five months to convince a head of the global electronics foundry's condenser receiver production to join Juheng. In 2010, almost all of the global chip-cutting and chip-boarding of concentrator batteries was performed by this company, and he was a master in this area. After joining Juheng, he is planning to expand upstream to expand the production process and increase the number of chip cutting and stenciling processes.

Lenses, which are key components in the field of optics, also encountered difficulties in the early stages of development. At the beginning, Juheng used plastic materials used by most international companies. Later, it was discovered that the lenses that had been made were leaking into the water after a long period of work. They immediately changed to glass lenses. At that time, there were only two concentrating companies using glass lenses globally. Without mature craftsmanship, two people kept trying and wrong in the laboratory. After a few hundred trials, the performance finally met the requirements.

"The whole process was stumbled and it was very hard." Rong Gang recalled. In the early days of startup, many raw materials were not used in the solar energy field, and the small-lot quantities of the goods in the R&D and experimental stages made it difficult for suppliers to supply them. For example, the housing on the back of the module is made of glass fiber reinforced plastic and must be stamped according to the design. The FRP die factory does not bother to accept these small orders. Rong Gang adopted the "stupidest approach" - calling "harassment" on a daily basis, imploring them to agree to supply, and even signing a pledge to ensure that they would purchase a large number of shells. Eventually impressed each other.

Another key component tracker (a device that rotates a solar panel to follow the sun's rays) has a very high accuracy requirement because the condenser battery must receive direct light. Prior to this, there was only one manufacturer in the world that could do a concentrator system battery tracker and was determined to do it. In August 2010, Juheng produced the first tracker, which was even better than expected.

The development process of Polyheng reflects the survival mode of China's science and technology entrepreneurial enterprises. It uses less funds and is extremely cautious about using money. Many links even use rough and clumsy methods. However, the entrepreneurial team always maintains a sense of tension and execution. Strong.

This is totally different from the entrepreneurial path of American science and technology enterprises. Rong Gang discovered that Juheng’s overseas competitors had received tens of millions or even hundreds of millions of dollars in early days. The entrepreneurial team had very high salary (only RMB 8,000 per person per month for the Juheng Group). In the beginning, it invested tens of millions of dollars to start a fully automated production line. However, Rong Gang thinks this is a huge risk. In 2010, only a dozen megawatts of global concentrating solar modules were installed, and the production capacity has exceeded 100 megawatts. And don't forget that this is an industry where technological progress is so rapid, and the production line built is likely to become a "past tense."

Liu Xiaoyu believes that Chinese companies also know how to save money. All of Ju Heng’s money is “flawless”: Most of the 20 million yuan of early-stage investment was spent on the raw materials of the experimental prototype, and the production line was very rough at first. The first mass-produced 200KW project of Juheng was produced by a handful of workers in a 600-square-meter room.

Juheng’s 20MW production line built in Jiaxing in April 2011 is now also dominated by manual processes. However, it is now time to consider what steps can be taken to replace the automation equipment that it manufactures. As for the direct light source needed for testing, the overseas supplier's offer is hundreds of thousands of euros. The cost of the direct light source researched and designed by Juheng has only cost tens of thousands of yuan***. A 30MW concentrator module production line of a concentrating company in the United States costs about 70 million yuan, while the budget of Polyheng's own design production line is less than 1/10 of the former.

After the game began in July 2011, four months after the inspection of Juheng, Rothschild China’s entire project team and Rong Gang and Wang Shitao once again sat on both sides of the conference table. Liu Xiaoyu asked: “Now we want to know one Question: How high is your technical threshold?"

Rong Gang explained that the core technology of Polyheng is reflected in the application technology of spotlight. It may not have the revolutionary significance of battery chip technology upgrading, but the accumulation of Know How has accumulated certain thresholds in the past five years, latecomers are difficult to quickly imitate.

The second question that Liu cares about is: “If current PV manufacturers such as Suntech and Yingli also make concentrator cells, what should you do?” Rong Gang’s answer is that the difference between spotlight and polysilicon is that the spotlight is multidisciplinary. Technology integration, in this field, polysilicon battery manufacturers do not have accumulated experience.

In fact, there is already a photovoltaic company in the country that wants to do high-power concentrating, and it almost tries to dig all employees of Juheng – except for Rong Gang. The PV company’s annual salary to Wang Shitao is 1.5 million, and it also pays several times for other employees.

After Rong Gang knew, all the backbones were brought together for a meeting. His lobbying strategy is simple - you can go if you want to, but I can tell you what will happen. Now, what conditions they have promised you, wages are much higher than here; but in the long run, how long can such high wages take? One or a few people can't make a product. Is there a skill to pull away all of them? impossible! If this is the case, people who are quits may not stay for three months. "Although Juheng has a lower salary, we have a future and we will have equity incentives," Rong said.

In the end, no one employee of Polyheng was dug away.

At the capital level, Juheng also received frequent attention. At the beginning of 2011, at the time of the most intense funding for Ju-Heng, the general manager of a listed state-owned enterprise spoke to him in the Ronggang office for five hours and wanted to inject capital. The group backed by this state-owned enterprise also operates downstream power stations. Once Juheng is controlled, its products will be more easily purchased by operators. This makes Ronggang quite tempted. However, Rong Gang put forward the conditions and hoped that the assets of Juheng would not be incorporated into the listed company. If the other party did not agree, the matter would not be solved.

Later, even when Juheng established a factory in Jiaxing, the local government also submitted capital injections, all of which were rejected by Ronggang.

"I don't think we have the ability to play this game with state-owned capital, and we don't have the relevant resources," Rong Gang said.

In September 2011, Juheng eventually introduced a total of US$10 million worth of venture capital in the land of Yinding and Rothschild. Dadi Yinding is a newcomer formed by veteran photovoltaic industry partners. Partner Ye Dejun was the vice president of Suntech, and Juheng was the first investment project after the establishment of Dadi Yinding. For Rothschild China, Juheng is also a rare case of investing in fast-growing companies.

The real game has only just begun. Juheng’s appearance is the 200KW project that was installed in Qingdao in early 2011. Subsequently, Italy's 700KW orders were also shipped, and signed a 1MW Golmud project with Guodian. Its 2012 target is 50MW.

The largest competitor of Polyheng is still a domestic polysilicon module manufacturer. Many of these photovoltaic giants already have more than GW capacity, and the prices of polysilicon modules have dropped sharply, giving them a more competitive advantage. Ronggang’s confidence is that by mid-2012, the price of concentrating modules will compete with polysilicon components. The constant cost control roadmap that Polyheng established in 2009 is that the component cost goal in 2012 is 1 US dollar/Watt, and the 2014 target is 0.5 US$/Watt, and the cost advantage will exceed the polysilicon component by that time.

Liu Xiaoyu believes that with polysilicon technology competition, Juheng can only start to fight prices, and hopes to further reduce costs through R&D and design later. In the long run, the spotlight should start with the cost of electricity, consumables, and energy repayment time.

“The solar industry should actually be an application-driven market. We are now simplifying it. Crystal silicon, thin film, spotlight, and solar thermal should each have their own market focus. The most suitable market for spotlight should be in the light. The conditions are very good, such as Golmud, Hami, Dunhuang. The more large-scale power stations, the more cost-effective spotlight advantages." Rong Gang said.

In the second half of 2011, electric giants ABB, Siemens, Schneider began to get involved in the spotlight through acquisitions and cooperation. These choices of electric companies, which are known for their prudence and stability, have increased the pressure of competition in the market. But from another perspective, it also shows that this is a future market full of potential.

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