“Science and Technology Innovation Board Daily”, May 16 (Reporter Wu Xuguang) “In the first quarter of 2024, about 100 MW was connected to the grid, and about 100 MW of wind farms were sold. Currently, more than 2 GW of wind farms are under construction. It is expected that the new wind farm will start construction in 2024 and be connected to the grid will be more than 1 GW.” At the 2023 and 2024 first quarter results briefing held on May 15, Zhou Likai, secretary of the board of directors of Sany Heavy Energy, said in response to the “Science and Technology Innovation Board Daily” and questions from some investors.

In terms of wind power plant construction, Zhou Likai said that the company generally adopted a “rolling development” strategy. While building new wind farms, it also took the opportunity to sell mature power plants and control the total asset size. By the end of 2023, its stock of wind power plants was 247.6MW.

Zhou Likai said that Sany Heavy Energy currently has relatively impressive reserve wind farm resources, mainly distributed in Hunan and the Sanbei region. It is expected that the company's foreign wind farm transfer capacity in 2024 will increase by a certain margin compared to 2023.

The main business of Sany Heavy Energy is the R&D, manufacturing and sales of wind turbines, and the design, construction, operation and management of wind farms. Thanks to the rush to install wind power and the cost control advantages of the company's core products such as fans, the company has achieved rapid growth in performance since 2020, and landed on the Science and Technology Innovation Board in 2022.

However, the “Science and Technology Innovation Board Daily” reporter noticed that in 2023, the gross margin of the company's fan products declined to around 15.45%, mainly due to the impact of some of the new lower-price orders in the year they were delivered. The fan's gross margin gradually declined starting in the second quarter of 2023. As of the first quarter of 2024, the company's consolidated gross margin was 19.67%, an increase of 5.3 percentage points over the previous quarter, mainly due to a significant increase in the gross margin of fan sales in the first quarter.

Looking ahead to the company's fan gross margin level in 2024 and the company's cost reduction and fee control target this year, Fang Meng, financial director of Sany Heavy Energy, said that the goal of fan gross margin for 2024 will not be lower than 2023.

Judging from the main path of “reducing costs and increasing efficiency,” Sany Energy is iteratively upgrading intelligent manufacturing technology on production lines.

At the performance meeting, Cao Jing, an independent director of the company, explained that Sany Energy has achieved breakthroughs in key automation technologies such as ultra-high torque assembly, automatic coil molding, and intelligent core assembly through intelligent wind power equipment and large megawatt automation process technology, and achieved benefits such as quality improvement, efficiency improvement, and cost reduction.

In April of this year, the “Science and Technology Innovation Board Daily” reporter visited Sany Heavy Energy's Beijing factory and learned that in terms of “reducing costs and increasing efficiency,” the company has achieved independent research and production of components such as blades and motors, which account for relatively high costs, and has improved production efficiency. “At present, all aspects of the fan have achieved a high degree of intelligent production, and human-robot collaboration is highly automated. One production line can simultaneously produce 5 models of products, achieve flexible mixed production of 3.X-15MW products, and shut down one fan every 3 hours.” Peng Xu, deputy general manager of Sany Heavy Energy, said.

According to statistics from the Wind Energy Professional Committee of the China Renewable Energy Society, Sany Heavy Energy's new lifting capacity in 2023 was 7.41 GW, an increase of 64% over the previous year, and its share in the domestic market was 9.3%, an increase of 0.2 percentage points over the previous year.

Regarding the demand performance of the wind power market since the first and second quarters of 2024, Cao Jing, an independent director of Sany Heavy Energy, said that the company expects the domestic fan production side to exceed 100 GW (including overseas projects) in 2024, with a grid-connected capacity of about 90 GW.

“Currently, wind power manufacturers are under high operating pressure. There is little room for fan prices to fall in the future. It may decline as the size of the units progresses further, but there is not much room for decline.” Cao Jing added.

A market practitioner told the “Science and Technology Innovation Board Daily” reporter that since the 2024 procurement and tender results of some power generation companies were recently announced, the average winning bid price for onshore 5MW fans including towers reached 2,100 yuan/kW, returning to more than 2,000 yuan, indicating that onshore fan prices have begun to return rationally.

It should be pointed out that as the prospects for the sea breeze market are gradually becoming clear, wind power companies are currently setting up overseas as a “must-choose question.”

Looking back at Sany Heavy Energy, the “Science and Technology Innovation Board Daily” reporter noticed that in 2023, the company's overseas revenue increased dramatically, achieving revenue of 310 million yuan, and achieved overseas sales of wind power equipment in Central Asia and South Asia. The gross profit margin from overseas sales was 22.07%, which is 5.25 percentage points higher than domestic revenue.

However, compared with companies that have been established overseas for a long time, such as Envision Energy and Goldwind Technology, Sany Energy's overseas business revenue volume is relatively small.

At this performance meeting, Zhou Likai, secretary of the board of directors of Sany Energy, confessed that other departments of the company have also formed overseas special teams to support overseas business development. “There are many overseas opportunities now. The company has set up a 'Chinese+local' overseas team, introduced a group of outstanding talents from the global wind power industry, and formed an overseas marketing team of more than 200 people, which basically covers major global wind power markets.”