With the result of the state subsidy bidding for the photovoltaic power inverter generation project of the State Energy Administration in 2019, the sunshine power source (300274.SZ), which was not a “visible landscape” in the investment field of power plants in the industry, went to the center of the stage. According to industry statistics, Sunshine Power has won the 1570MW bidding project. If the first batch of 860MW parity projects are superimposed, a total of 2430MW power plant projects will be captured, ranking first among residential photovoltaic enterprises in scale. The fierce move shocked the industry. Headquartered in Hefei Hi-tech Zone, Anhui Province, Sunshine Power has been deeply cultivated in the photovoltaic industry for 22 years. It has been known to the industry as the leading enterprise of global inverters before. In fact, as early as 2014, its photovoltaic power inverter station business revenue has surpassed the inverters business and become one of the main business, and in 2017, it joined the global light industry. Volt EPC market three. Industry insiders told China Business Daily that such a large-scale investment in solar power plants is likely to change the market pattern of photovoltaic power plant investment in 2019. But what’s the logic behind it? Short-term performance decline was founded in 1997, Sunshine Power Supply, one of the earliest domestic enterprises engaged in research and development and production of inverters. Its business involves six parts: photovoltaic inverters, power plant system integration, wind energy converter, energy storage, new energy vehicle drive system and floating system. Among them, the integration of photovoltaic inverters and power system is the company’s main business, accounting for more than 90%. Up to 2018, the total installed inverters exceeded 79GW, accounting for about 30% and 15% of the domestic and foreign markets respectively. Over the past few years, with the support of inverters technology and services, the performance of Sunshine Power Source has soared rapidly as a result of the superimposition of a market environment that has been advancing all the way. Especially from 2013 to 2017, the company’s revenue reached 2.12 billion yuan, 3.062 billion yuan, 4.569 billion yuan, 6.044 billion yuan and 8.886 billion yuan, respectively, increasing by 95.73%, 44.42%, 49.21%, 31.39% and 4.801% over the same period of last year; net profit reached 181 million yuan, 283 million yuan, 425 million yuan, 554 million yuan and 1.024 billion yuan, respectively, up by 14.866%, 55.21%, 31.39% and 4 billion yuan over the same period of last year. 91%, 50.17%, 30.14% and 85%. However, this trend of high growth began to turn with the landing of the “531” policy in 2018. Reporter statistics found that more than 60% of the net profit of photovoltaic enterprises has declined, of course, as the leader of the inverters, the sun power is no exception. As can be seen, the growth rate of Sunshine Power’s business revenue slowed down in 2018, and the net profit also declined to a certain extent. Among them, in 2018, the company’s operating income was 10.369 billion yuan, an increase of 16.69%, and its net profit was 810 million yuan, a decrease of 20.95%. Facing the industry dilemma, many photovoltaic enterprises, including sunlight power, have chosen to break through by “developing overseas markets and opening up diversified management”. It is understood that since the second half of 2018, Sunshine Power has vigorously exploited overseas markets such as the United States, India, Vietnam, and coordinated the development of energy storage, new energy vehicles and other businesses, especially the energy storage business increased by 495.75% year-on-year in 2018. Nearly half a year after the “531” New Deal landed, the industry’s difficulties can be said to have passed. Cao Renxian, chairman of Sunshine Power, told reporters publicly that after “531”, the industry has indeed been greatly affected, but much better than expected. It’s not as moisturizing as before, but it’s still healthier. The reality is that domestic subsidies and indicators policies have been in a blank period for a long time, and the demand of domestic photovoltaic market has shrunk dramatically. Relevant data show that from January to May 2019, China added 7.61 GW of new photovoltaic installed units, a decrease of 44% compared with the same period last year. Affected by this, the net profit of sunshine power supply continued to decline in the first quarter and half of 2019. Among them, in the first quarter of 2019, Sunshine Power realized business income of 2.219 billion yuan, an increase of 30.11% compared with the same period last year; net profit attributable to shareholders of listed companies was 171 million yuan, a decrease of 15.56% compared with the same period last year. The first half of 2019 performance forecast shows that net profit is estimated to be 314 million to 352 million yuan, down 8% to 18% from the same period last year. In terms of solar power inverter supply, the domestic installed capacity of new photovoltaic devices declined considerably year-on-year, and domestic business was affected to a certain extent. In response, an analyst at Guosheng Securities also said that the first half of the domestic photovoltaic scale was not planned too much, the company’s performance in the first half was affected, which is basically in line with expectations. At the same time, Huachuang Securities believes that the company will benefit significantly from the start of the domestic photovoltaic market in the second half of the year and the sustained high growth of overseas exports.
After a slightly sluggish year, the domestic photovoltaic market has been fully launched in the second half of 2019, and many enterprises have made great efforts to seize the market. And filling power station business undoubtedly becomes a powerful weight of sunshine power supply. On July 11, the State Energy Administration announced the results of photovoltaic subsidy bidding in 2019. It plans to include 3921 projects from 22 provinces (districts and municipalities) such as Beijing and Tianjin into the scope of the national bidding subsidy in 2019, with a total installed capacity of about 22.79GW. Among them, Sunshine Power won the power station development right with 1570MW bidding index, ranking first among residential enterprises in scale. On the contrary, peer companies, influenced by last year’s “531” policy, such as Xiexin New Energy (00451. HK), Panda Green Energy (00686. HK), North Control Clean (01250. HK) and Jiangshan Holdings (00295. HK), have all sold their photovoltaic power plant assets in succession, opening up the “big withdrawal” mode of power plant investment. Among them, Xiexin New Energy, the second domestic photovoltaic power plant investor, has won only 120 MW bidding project. “Not much has been done before, but this year is quite radical.” According to an EPC enterprise manager in the industry, at present, the profit of photovoltaic inverters is getting thinner and thinner, and its business volume of energy storage and floating is not so large, so it may need to change its business direction. In addition, a person in charge of inverters told reporters: “Sunshine power supply pressure is also very high, no longer do some projects, the results are not good.” Reporters from a person close to sunshine power sources also received confirmation, he disclosed that the recent chairman of sunshine power Cao Renxian struggled, may personally out of Mana many projects. For the power plant project indicators related matters, the sunshine power source did not respond to reporters, saying that keep a low profile, temporarily do not publicize. In the view of industry insiders, extending the industrial chain to the power inverter station and exerting the synergistic effect of “product + power station” is the profit-making mode of photovoltaic manufacturing enterprises. This can not only increase the business income of power plants, but also bundle and sell their own inverters, playing a “two wings fly together” effect.
In 2013, Sunshine Power set up a power plant business department, which began to develop, design, construction and operation and maintenance of power plant projects. At present, the company’s power station business model mainly includes EPC (also known as turnkey engineering, namely design, procurement, construction) and BT (namely investment, construction and transfer). According to the company’s financial report from 2014 to 2018, the revenue of power station system integration business has soared, accounting for 49.56%, 49.50%, 54.72%, 52.52% and 56.59% of the total revenue, respectively, of 1.518 billion yuan, 2.262 billion yuan, 3.285 billion yuan, 4.667 billion yuan and 5.868 billion yuan. It is noteworthy that in 2014, the company’s first super photovoltaic inverters in power plant system integration business revenue increased by 129.56% year on year. And in 2018, when the photovoltaic inverters business suffered a certain impact, the power plant business still boosted the overall main revenue. Foreign media pv-magazine cited data from IHS Markit’s “Photovoltaic EPC and O&M Provider Tracking” show that in 2018, with a market share of 1.3%, Sunlight Power ranked second in China and third in the world after Tec Substation. However, an employee of Sunshine Power Station Business told reporters that at present, the Business Department of Power Station includes wind power and photovoltaic business at home and abroad. Although in the same power station, the inverters may only account for 5% and the power station is 100%, the influence of the inverters is still relatively large. According to the incomplete statistics of the company’s financial report in 2018, the construction of photovoltaic projects by BT and EPC modes for solar power in 2018 is about 1437 MW, including 436 MW for BT service grid-connected power station, 50 MW for construction project, 944 MW for EPC service grid-connected project and 7 MW for construction project. By contrast, in 2019, only bidding and parity projects won more than 2GW, which is a big deal. “Flexible” investment logic photovoltaic power plant assets business belongs to the heavy assets industry, marching into this field in a large scale, the greatest test test test is the operating cash flow of enterprises, or financing capacity. It is understood that, constrained by financing pressure and high asset-liability ratio, some power plant developers have been affected to varying degrees after changes in the domestic policy environment. At the same time, as the photovoltaic industry rapidly enters the initial stage of bidding and parity, the cost pressure of power plant construction is relatively high, and the performance of these power plant developers is not positive. On July 17, journalists learned from their practice that even some enterprises that have already obtained the bidding target for power plants in 2019 have begun to consider selling, looking for “bottom” enterprises everywhere, because of the financial pressure.
So, is there any financial pressure for the construction of power plants in the sunshine power supply? Reporters combed the company’s earnings from 2016 to 2018 and the first quarter of 2019, and found that the operating cash flow of Sunshine Power declined to a certain extent, and the liabilities also tended to rise. The results of the first quarter of 2016-2018 and 2019 show that the net cash flow generated by the company’s business activities during the reporting period is 866 million yuan, 855 million yuan, 181 million yuan and -723 million yuan, respectively. In the 2018 financial report, the company explained that the net cash flow from its business activities had declined a lot, which was due to the purchase of commodities in the current period, the payment of cash for labor services, the salary of employees, and other cash increases related to its business activities. Meanwhile, from 2016 to 2018 and the first quarter of 2019, the total liabilities of sunshine power supply reached 5.693 billion yuan, 9.225 billion yuan and 10.698 billion yuan, 109.47 billion yuan respectively, showing an obvious upward trend. Reporters noted that Sunshine Power Company launched a major move to raise funds from banks at the same time as it released its earnings report for 2018 and its earnings forecast for the first quarter of 2019. On March 30, the company issued a bulletin on the application for comprehensive credit lines to banks in 2019. According to the company’s daily operation needs, the total amount of credit lines applied to 18 banks, such as Luyang Branch of China Construction Bank, Hefei Branch of Agricultural Bank of China and Hefei Science and Technology Branch of Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, is no more than 8.6 billion yuan. As for the problem of capital pressure, an EPC executive of a photovoltaic enterprise calculated an account to reporters: according to the calculation of 4 yuan/W, the 2GW power station will be about 8 billion yuan. Therefore, there should be no problem with the financial pressure of sunlight power supply. In the view of the above-mentioned executives, Sunshine Power has a good “flexibility” investment space in this large-scale filling of power station business, whether from the enterprise’s own power station business model or from the policy buffer time point of view. According to reports, the photovoltaic policy in 2019 buffers the first batch of parity and bidding projects, and does not pose a greater risk to power plant investment enterprises. This also means that according to market, cost and capital requirements, solar power inverter can consider some parity projects to postpone grid-connected time. “Parity projects can be done next year. Bidding can be done as part of the project, even if the price of the first half of next year can be reduced by one or two cents. These executives told reporters that if there is pressure this year, it may be the pressure to buy components, but the power plants built by Sunshine Power are generally to be sold, so that part of the funds can be recovered quickly, and the overall turnover can be achieved. The reporter contacted a person in charge of the new energy of the Three Gorges, who has a close cooperation with Yangguan Power Supply. The other party said that the sunshine power supply generally builds its own projects and transfers them after completion. In recent years, it has developed well and should have capital.