2. Massive increase of flexible resources on the user side, and the problem of effective aggregation highlights
the massive increase of flexible resources on the user side. In recent years, with the rapid development of distributed photovoltaic in China, the grid-connected capacity has maintained an annual growth of more than 20%, and the grid-connected capacity of distributed photovoltaic in 2012. 2. The number of electric vehicle in China has also increased year by year, from 220000 in 2014 to 13.1 million in 2022, with a compound annual growth rate of 67%, and the corresponding charging pile business has also grown rapidly. In 2022, the number of charging piles increased by nearly 100% year on year. The installed capacity of electrochemical energy storage in China increased from 243 MW in 2016 to 7,000 MW in 2022, with a compound annual growth rate of 75%, of which user-side energy storage accounted for 12. User-side flexible resources showed a massive increasing trend. The problem of
massive adjustable resource aggregation is highlighted . With the development of distributed photovoltaic, user-side energy storage, electric vehicle charging piles and other industries, the user-side flexible heterogeneous resources in China are characterized by large quantity, small size, large total amount and different types, which make it difficult to directly participate in the operation of the power system. According to the State Grid Jibei Electric Power, in 2021, China's user-side adjustable resources will be about 40 million kilowatts, accounting for the maximum load ratio. 3. To awaken and aggregate these massive user-side adjustable resources to participate in the power market and establish a low-carbon, safe and economic new energy power system, a way to coordinate and optimize operation control and market transactions is needed.
3. Virtual power plant is an important support
to improve the flexibility of the new power system. Under the background of "double carbon", the proportion of new energy installed and the further growth of intermittent load on the user side put forward higher and higher requirements for the flexible regulation ability of the power system. Tapping the flexibility resources and regulation potential of the load side has become an important means to enhance the regulation capacity of the power system and ensure the safe and stable supply of electricity.
Power generation side: The proportion of new energy generation increases, which puts forward higher requirements for the flexible regulation ability of the power system. New energy power generation, represented by photovoltaic and wind power, is heavily dependent on natural resource characteristics such as light intensity and wind intensity, and has significant intermittency and strong random volatility. If multiple new energy generating units in a single form are connected to a large grid on a large scale, serious system stability problems will arise, which will restrict the large-scale development and utilization of new energy power. Power
consumption side: the residents of the tertiary industry become the main body of the new load, and the time-period demand pattern worsens the characteristics of the power load. According to the report "Economic Analysis and Guarantee Path Research on China's Power Supply Security" written by yuan Jiahai and others, China's economy has basically completed the process of industrialization, and the electricity load of residents in the tertiary industry has become the main body of new load. With the superposition of extreme meteorological factors, the characteristics of electricity load continue to deteriorate, which is mainly manifested in the widening of peak-valley difference, the increase of peak load and the decrease of average load rate. If we continue to rely solely on increasing power supply to meet 100% of the load demand, we will pay a higher price.
Virtual power plant is an effective means for safe and efficient consumption of new energy. Virtual power plant is an important tool to improve the interactive response capability of the demand side of the new power system. As one of the important means to improve the regulation ability of power system, virtual power plant will play an important role in alleviating power shortage and promoting new energy power consumption. The integration mode of new energy power provided by
virtual power plant with traditional energy and energy storage devices helps the power system to change from the traditional "source-to-load" operation mode to "source-to-load interaction", thus ensuring the stable power output characteristics of the large power grid under the intelligent collaborative regulation and decision support. It has become an effective grasp for the safe and stable operation of the new power system. Under the background of tight
power supply and demand, the virtual power plant has outstanding economic benefits and considerable prospects. According to 36 krypton data, on the demand side, the relationship between power supply and demand in the eastern and western regions of China is tightening, the contradiction between power peak and valley is becoming increasingly prominent, and the peak load of more than 95% of the annual maximum load is less than 50 hours, which urgently needs reliable solutions to deal with. On the supply side, the technology is becoming more and more mature, which makes the cost of virtual power plant decrease continuously, and the virtual power plant shows strong economy, which is expected to become an important direction of new power system construction.
4. Virtual power plant is the key to the optimization of power system interoperability, and AI will further optimize the efficiency
of regulation and control. Virtual power plant is a smart energy system that aggregates controllable resources such as adjustable load, energy storage, microgrid, charging pile and distributed generation in different spaces. As a special power plant, it realizes the autonomous coordination and optimal control of power resources. The core of the virtual power plant is the centralized control platform. On the one hand, the centralized control platform can analyze the collected data of charging piles and residential electricity consumption, so as to achieve accurate response and management on the demand side. When the power supply on the demand side is insufficient, it can be used as a "positive power plant" to supply power to the power system. When the power generation side is too large, the demand side is difficult to load. It can also be used as a "negative power plant" to increase the load absorption of power system, help the power market to cut peak and fill valley, and smooth a series of impacts of new energy grid connection on the power grid; On the other hand, it can communicate with the large power grid and the power market, which not only helps to optimize the whole power grid system, but also provides a way for enterprises, users, charging piles, energy storage, distributed energy and other market players to participate in the power market transactions, so that they can become micro-generators to participate in the power market transactions, so as to obtain arbitrage gains.
Regulation and management are the core of virtual power plants, which are matching the strengths of AI technology. Virtual power plant is an intelligent management system based on information technology and communication technology. Coordination, control and management are the core technologies. Specifically, the construction of virtual power plant can be divided into three key information technologies: coordinated control, energy management, and information and communication technology.Among them, the coordinated control technology needs to connect the adjustment of multiple links of source, network, load and storage, and make judgments on multiple data such as power generation, power consumption and electricity price. The access of AI is expected to greatly improve the analysis efficiency and accuracy. On the other hand, the virtual power plant, which mainly affects the level of power consumption at end B, has less impact on the overall stability of the power grid and is expected to take the lead in accessing the application of large models.
04
Driving factors
1. The construction of a new power system promotes the development
of virtual power plants. Unlike traditional power sources such as thermal power and hydropower with their own regulation capabilities, the output of wind and solar new energy has typical characteristics such as intermittence, volatility and randomness. Its large-scale access will increase the pressure of peak regulation and frequency modulation of power system, and increase the potential security risks of frequency stability and voltage stability. The traditional power system can not meet the needs of new energy development, so China will gradually upgrade the traditional power system to a new power system. As a bridge linking the supply and demand of new energy, the new power system has five basic characteristics of clean, low-carbon, safe, controllable, flexible, efficient, intelligent, friendly and open interaction, which can meet the needs of stable, efficient and safe interaction among sources, networks, loads and storage links after large-scale access of wind and solar energy, and promote new energy. It also provides a technical basis for all kinds of subjects to participate in the electricity market. The construction of
new power system covers the hardware and software upgrades of power generation side, grid side and user side, and promotes new scenarios and new modes in various links. On the power generation side, the increase of wind and solar installed capacity accelerates the construction of flexible regulation power sources such as pumped storage and new energy storage, and the development of new energy generation power forecasting and multi-energy complementary dispatching technology will also help to solve the problem of consumption; On the grid side, the traditional grid based on one-way step-by-step transmission can not meet the dispatching requirements after large-scale access of distributed energy. Grid companies need to accelerate the upgrading of grid form through smart distribution network and micro-grid construction, and build an energy Internet that meets the conditions of new energy transmission; On the power side, large industrial users strengthen the demand-side response capability, and all kinds of adjustable distributed resources are aggregated to form virtual power plants, which participate in the electricity spot market and ancillary service market as the main body, eventually forming an incomplete real-time balanced operation mode of source, network, load and storage interaction.
With the continuous expansion of the new energy industry chain, the proportion of DERs such as distributed generation and adjustable load in the new power system will continue to increase. Virtual power plant, as a coordinated management system with the ability to integrate massive distributed energy resources, is expected to play a key role in the new power system, play a role in regulating the flow of electric energy and information, and improve the operation efficiency of the power system, and is expected to fully benefit from the implementation of relevant policies and construction of the new power system and develop rapidly.
2. Policies continue to improve the market mechanism and promote the construction and development
of virtual power plants. Up to now, 14 provinces and cities, including Tianjin, Anhui, Beijing, Henan and Guangdong, have incorporated the construction of virtual power plants into the power development plan or energy development plan during the 14th Five-Year Plan period. Policies mainly involve virtual power plant demand response, ancillary services, etc. Supporting measures include promoting the construction of virtual power plant demonstration projects, exploring business models, encouraging participation in market transactions, etc. It is expected that more special policies and implementation plans will be released in the future.
At the same time, on the basis of the frequent promulgation of the above-mentioned domestic policies on virtual power plants, the continuous promotion of pilot projects in various provinces and the maturity of the business model of virtual power plants, the State Energy Administration issued "Several Opin ions on Accelerating the Development of Energy Digitalization and Intelligence" in March 2023. It is pointed out that we should focus on promoting the pilot work of intellectualization and digitalization of virtual power scenarios, so as to provide direction guidance for the further development of virtual power plants. 
The new digital infrastructure covers many new technologies, and the virtual power plant benefits in many ways. Under the construction of new digital infrastructure, emerging technologies such as energy big data center, artificial intelligence and power Internet of Things will be applied to power grid, load and other power links, and the ability of information aggregation, transmission and analysis will be enhanced explosively, which will make the power system more intelligent and the data more accurate, which will be highly conducive to the development of new formats such as virtual power plants. Through the intelligent power system of the new infrastructure, the virtual power plant can more accurately obtain different kinds of data at different levels, such as distributed energy, regional energy, etc., so as to trace back the data through large data and other means, predict future demand changes, and at the same time, through new power equipment such as intelligent monitoring equipment, so as to achieve the goal. Virtual power plants can predict their ability to cut peak and fill valley more accurately, respond more quickly, and maintain more efficiently, and can improve their own benefits in a variety of ways.
05
Industry chain and business model
1. Industry chain overview
The virtual power plant industry chain consists of upstream basic resources, midstream system platform and downstream power demand side .
Upstream basic resources : mainly including adjustable load, distributed generation and energy storage equipment. The key areas of adjustable load mainly include industry, construction and residents. According to 36 Krypton Research Institute, the load adjustable potential of different application scenarios is quite different. The adjustable load of commercial and public buildings is mainly air conditioning, lighting and power, accounting for about 25% of the building load. The distribution of residential adjustable load is scattered, the single-point capacity is small, and the aggregation is difficult. Distributed generation refers to the small generating units equipped at and near the user's site, including one or more combinations of small gas turbines, small photovoltaic and small wind power, hydropower, biomass, fuel cells, etc. Energy storage equipment includes mechanical energy storage, chemical energy storage, electromagnetic energy storage and so on. In practice, all kinds of resources are often mixed, especially the adjustable load is mixed with more and more self-use distributed energy and energy storage, or combined into microgrid, local energy Internet, etc., nested in the virtual power plant. According to the 36 Krypton Research Institute, the adjustable resources of virtual power plants in China are huge, the adjustable load resources exceed 50 million kilowatts, the installed capacity of distributed generation exceeds 60 million kilowatts, the energy storage capacity of the user side is about 1 million kilowatts, and the energy storage capacity of the electric vehicle reaches 30 million kilowatts, and the scale of the above resources is still in a period of rapid growth.
Midstream resource aggregators : rely on the Internet and big data to integrate, optimize, dispatch and make decisions on data and information from all levels, enhance the unified coordination and control capability of virtual power plants, and become the key link in the industrial chain. China's virtual power plant is still in its infancy, but the market demand is huge, so resource aggregators take a variety of routes. To the grid side : obtain contracts for providing ancillary services and compensation, provide ancillary services such as peak shaving and valley filling by adjusting user loads, and allocate controllable resources to provide power generation capacity; Power consumption side : forecast the price fluctuation of the electricity market, make decisions on the power consumption behavior of the adjustable load, act as an agent for the power purchase business, and provide users with intelligent power consumption schemes; To the power generation side : to guide the distributed generation to participate in the market transaction in the best way, including signing the transaction contract and determining the bidding method.
Downstream power demander : It is composed of grid company, power selling company and large users. Power grid company: As a power grid operator, it is an important buyer in the electricity market. Power selling companies: including independent power selling companies, power selling companies with distribution network operation rights and power selling companies in the field of power grid.Large users: mainly refer to the large industrial and commercial power users who can directly participate in the power wholesale market transactions at the B-end.
2. Business model
At present, the main business model of virtual power plants in China is to obtain subsidies, which is expected to benefit from participating in electricity trading in the future. At present, most of the virtual power plants in China are invitation-type, which send invitation signals through government agencies or power dispatching agencies, and load aggregators and virtual power plants organize resources to respond to demand such as peak shaving and valley filling, so as to obtain subsidies. In addition, in provinces with electricity spot market pilot projects, virtual power plants can obtain revenue sharing by participating in market transactions.
(1) Demand response, peak shaving and valley filling to obtain subsidies (the current mainstream)
virtual power plants have environmental and economic advantages compared with traditional thermal power peak shaving and valley filling. According to the calculation of the State Grid, 400 billion yuan is needed to meet 5% of the peak load through the thermal power plant to achieve peak shaving and valley filling of the power system, while only 50-60 billion yuan is needed to invest in the construction, operation and incentive of the virtual power plant. With the development of the virtual power plant technology, the virtual power plant is expected to become an important means of peak shaving and valley filling.
(2) Participate in electricity trading to obtain profit sharing (feasible direction in the future)
Power generation side energy aggregation to participate in spot market transactions, relying on scheduling flexibility to obtain revenue . There are two main types of electricity market transactions for virtual power plants: the medium and long-term market and the spot market. Virtual power plants can participate in single-level market transactions alone and obtain benefits through the price difference between the market price and the internal cost. Based on the flexibility characteristics of the virtual power plant, it can participate in the joint market transactions, combined with the output characteristics of the internal units of the virtual power plant, through the prediction of market prices and loads, product portfolio transactions. Considering the current situation of electricity market reform in China, because the spot market is only in trial operation in the pilot, with the advancement of electricity market reform, the scale of virtual power plants participating in electricity market transactions is expected to further increase.
06 The
competition pattern
adapts to the change of the core driving force of the industry, and the types of players participating in the virtual power plant market continue to expand . The industrial development of virtual power plants will go through three periods dominated by policy, demand and technology, and is now in the demand-led 2.0 stage, which is expected to formally enter the technology-led 3. The change of the core driving force of the industry will lead to the continuous enrichment of the types of market players, which will be driven by the change of the driving force of policy, demand and technology. The market participants of virtual power plants have also realized the gradual expansion from traditional power grid enterprises to energy IT enterprises and then to technology companies.
1. Traditional players are concentrated in the three major areas
of industry, public utilities and information technology. Virtual power plant market players are mainly power enterprises and energy information enterprises. Selecting 34 listed companies in the Wind Virtual Power Plant Index and taking the Wind first-class industry classification as the statistical caliber to obtain the industry distribution of virtual power plant enterprises, we can see that the highest proportion of virtual power plant participants in the industrial field is 67.6%, followed by the information technology field, which accounts for 23.5%. From the perspective of main business, in the industrial field (23 companies), there are 16 power grid equipment companies, 5 power supply equipment companies, and 2 electrical general equipment companies; in the information technology field (8 companies), there are 3 energy information companies, 4 power grid/power supply equipment companies, and 1 communication equipment company; Public utilities (3): all are new energy power generation companies. To sum up, the current participating manufacturers mostly take the upstream source, storage and load resources of the virtual power plant as the starting point to carry out the business layout of the virtual power plant, which is in line with the development needs of the virtual power plant under the guidance of the initial policy. The pilot project of
virtual power plant is widely opened, and the market players mainly include three categories . Since 2019, virtual power plant demonstration projects have been widely launched in China, and the main participants can be roughly divided into three categories: power grid enterprises: mainly including the two major power dispatching entities of State Grid and China Southern Power Grid ; Power generation group: including State Power Investment Group, China Huaneng Group, China Datang Group and other large power generation groups; energy IT enterprises: including State Grid Telecom, Hengshi Technology, Guoneng Rixin and other enterprises.
Power grid enterprises : At present, the most important business model of virtual power plants is still demand response. As a power dispatching center, power grid enterprises have the most sufficient power to develop virtual power plants and have the deepest understanding of demand response business. At the same time, the original load management platform of power grid is expected to provide important data and technical basis for the construction of virtual power plant. In the initial stage of policy-oriented construction, the demand for intelligent virtual power plant is not high, and the competitive advantage of power grid enterprises is the most obvious.
Power generation group : The power generation group has abundant power resources, and the layout of virtual power plant business can effectively enhance the voice of enterprises in the new energy market in the future. Meanwhile, with the effective promotion of the business model of virtual power plant power trading, the power generation group is expected to achieve extensive benefits through the spot trading of new energy power generation.
Energy IT enterprises : Energy IT manufacturers have profound industry Know-How and rich experience in power informatization, and can more rapidly expand the virtual power plant business based on digital technology. In the future, as the business model of virtual power plant becomes more mature, the main body of construction will be more extensive. The technological competitive advantage of energy IT enterprises will be more obvious.
Virtual power plant has entered the demand-oriented 2. Virtual power plant farewell to policy-oriented 1. Statistics of the successful bidding of virtual power plant projects from September 2021 to September 2022 show that the technical requirements of power grid enterprises and power generation groups for the operation platform of virtual power plant are getting higher and higher. The industry pays great attention to the deep integration of blockchain, digital twin, artificial intelligence and other technologies and platforms, and pays more attention to the intelligent characteristics of the virtual power plant operation platform, so the trend of cooperation with energy IT manufacturers is becoming more and more clear. Based on the deep accumulation of traditional information business such as energy efficiency management system, intelligent energy system and new energy power generation forecasting system, energy IT manufacturers can realize the rapid transfer of industry Know-How to virtual power plant operation platform, and their advantages are expected to be highlighted.
2. Technology-led industry In the future, the competition pattern may rewrite
the virtual power plant from demand-led to technology-led, and multiple subjects will enter the market . With the clearer business model of virtual power plant and the extensive verification of pilot projects, the main operators of virtual power plant in the future will no longer be limited to traditional power enterprises such as power grid companies and power generation groups, new energy vehicle enterprises with flexible side resources, as well as technology companies with new energy advantages, big data advantages and communication advantages. The market scale of virtual power plants will also be further expanded. With the virtual power plant to the technology-oriented 3.
New energy vehicle companies grasp the flexible resources on the demand side, it is expected to replicate the Tesla model . With electric vehicle as a link, new energy automobile enterprises are expected to build a vehicle-charging-light-storage collaborative energy ecology through the virtual power plant mode. The virtual power plant can not only realize the light-storage-charging collaboration to meet the charging needs of electric vehicle, but also realize the reverse power supply of the virtual power plant through the vehicle-storage-charging collaboration and the node connection between the charging station and the distribution network. Taking Tesla as an example, Auto Bidder, the virtual power plant intelligent platform launched by Tesla, has completed the real-time power transaction and control under the coordination of Tesla vehicle-charging-light-storage, which can not only provide the function of load and power generation forecasting and sharing, but also interconnect and share the information and computing data carried by various energy products. According to the priority calculated by the internal algorithm library, they send or receive instructions to each other for unified mobilization and penetration, so as to realize the important functions of rapid scheduling and intelligent response.
At present, domestic new energy automobile companies such as BYD and Weilai have begun to lay out virtual power plant business . In June 2020, the State Energy Administration issued a public announcement on the proposed project of "Science and Technology Helping Economy 2020" in the field of energy, in which the multi-level virtual power plant platform is led by BYD, and BYD plans to achieve demand response functions such as load control and multi-energy coordination through the virtual power plant platform. At the same time, through the information exchange with the power trading center, we can promote the expansion of trading functions. Since 2018, Weilai has started the construction of NIO Power charging network, and the first destination charging station was put into operation in Chengdu in August 2018. By July 2022, Weilai has built 1,079 charging stations, with a total of more than 10,000 charging piles. The coverage rate of "electric district housing" in China is over 62%. Based on the extensive layout of charging and switching infrastructure, Weilai speeds up the construction of "energy cloud", hoping to build a virtual power plant of "charging and switching power station + electric vehicle + energy storage", so as to achieve peak shaving and valley filling, and promote clean energy consumption.
Technology companies are expected to break through the advantages of new energy, big data and communication, and build high-performance virtual power plants . The new energy technology company represented by Ningde Times has always adhered to the development vision of "realizing fixed fossil energy substitution with renewable energy and energy storage as the core, realizing mobile fossil energy substitution with power battery as the core, and realizing integrated innovation of market application with electrification and intellectualization as the core". In September 2022, Ningde Times and China Mobile formally signed a strategic cooperation framework agreement. The two sides will achieve a high degree of integration of new energy advantages, communication advantages and data advantages, and cooperate in the fields of zero-carbon data center construction, distributed energy storage and grid intelligent collaboration, integrated intelligent lithium battery and operation management and control platform development, and virtual power plant construction and operation.
07
Related enterprises
1. Longxin Technology: a leading
company in energy digitalization that has been deeply engaged in the industry for 20 years, driven by two wheels of energy digitalization system construction and platform operation. The company focuses on the two-wheel drive development strategy of "energy digitalization + energy Internet". On the one hand, the company is deeply engaged in the energy industry, through a complete solution, to help the State Grid, China Southern Power Grid, Gas Group and other customers to achieve digital upgrading; On the other hand, the company through the construction of its own energy Internet service platform, in-depth development of energy demand side operation services, together with strategic partners, through Alipay, UnionPay, city super APP and other entrances, to provide end users with a variety of new energy service scenarios, including household energy consumption, electric vehicle charging, energy efficiency management and so on. Promote the electrification and scenario of terminal energy consumption.
Energy digitalization: Power marketing 2. The Company's revenue from energy digitalization business will be realized in 2021 34. Looking forward to the future, the State Grid Corporation of China's power marketing 2. The Company participated in the first power marketing 2.0 pilot project of the State Grid Corporation of China, and participated in the energy Internet marketing service system ( "marketing") 2. In 2021, R & D investment increased by 57.48% year-on-year to 5. The company has sufficient project experience and technical reserves, which is expected to benefit from the high prosperity of the power grid industry and continue to improve its performance.
Energy Internet: The prospect of aggregation charging is promising, and the growth boundary is expected to continue to expand . Breakthrough in energy Internet business, revenue growth in 2021 43. According to the forecast of Longxin Technology's 2022 Interim Report, the company's "New Power Road" aggregate charging platform covers about 500000 charging piles, serves about 3.8 million new energy car owners, and the aggregate charging capacity is nearly 8. Benefiting from the increase in the penetration rate of new energy vehicles and the increase in the number of charging piles, the aggregate charging business is expected to grow rapidly; With the rich scenarios of energy operation services, the integrated optical storage and charging station, charging + electricity sales and other businesses are expected to further open the growth ceiling.
2. Dongfang Electronics: Smart Grid "Little Giant"
Company is the smart grid "Little Giant" of the whole industry chain layout. The company entered the field of power automation in the early 1980s. After 40 years of precipitation, the company's product system covers the whole link of smart grid "transmission and distribution", and cultivates comprehensive solutions such as dispatching automation, substation protection and integrated automation, substation intelligent auxiliary monitoring system, dis tribution automation, distribution primary and secondary integration, network security device, virtual power plant, electric energy meter and metering system. In the power industry, "source-network-load-storage" and other links form a complete industrial chain layout, and the market share in the field of dispatching, distribution and smart meters is in the forefront of the industry.
The company's market share of core products such as dispatching and distribution is in the forefront of the industry. The company has been deeply engaged in the field of power automation for many years, and the market share of dispatching automation is in the forefront of the industry. The dispatching automation system covers many provincial, regional and county-level dispatching master stations in China, especially at the local dispatching level, which is in the leading position in the Southern Power Grid system. The company is the first manufacturer to enter the field of power distribution in China, one of the seven major suppliers of power distribution master stations of the State Grid, and ranks first in the share of power distribution terminals in the country. The virtual power plant system developed by the
company has landed in Guangdong Energy Investment Load Aggregation Virtual Power Plant Project . According to Dongfang Electronics Public Number, the project of Guangdong Energy Investment Load Aggregation Virtual Power Plant developed by the company aggregates a large number of distributed controllable resources on the user side, such as distributed photovoltaic, battery energy storage, intelligent street l ights, and has now aggregated 450 MW of industrial adjustable load and 11 MW of energy storage to realize panoramic monitoring and perception of user side resources. Efficient help clean energy consumption and low-carbon energy transformation.
3. Guoneng Rixin: the leader of new energy power generation forecasting, the growth of SaaS-like model can be expected
The Company has been deeply engaged in the power industry for many years, and has formed a product system with new energy power generation forecasting products as the core. The core management of the Company has a long experience in the power industry, has an accurate grasp of the pain points and development trends of the new energy industry, and has a clear understanding of the important role of power generation forecasting and power generation control in the development of new energy. Thanks to the company's senior management's deep understanding of the power industry and continuous R & D investment, the company has formed a product system with new energy power generation prediction products as the core, new energy grid-connected intelligent control system, new energy power station intelligent operation system and grid new energy management system as the expansion, covering the power generation of new energy. In order to meet the customer's management requirements of "visible, predictable and controllable" for new energy power. The business model of
new energy power generation forecasting service is similar to SaaS, which has the advantages of high repurchase, high retention and high gross profit margin.
High repurchase : The power generation forecasting service is a necessary service based on the instability of new energy power generation, which plays an important role in the real-time assessment of new energy power stations in response to the power grid, ensuring power generation and improving operational efficiency, and requires continuous purchase by customers. According to the new prospectus of Guoneng Day, 2018-2021H1, the renewal time of the company's new energy power generation forecast service has been extended on the whole.
High retention : As the prediction of new energy power generation requires a detailed and clear understanding of the local terrain, weather and other conditions of the power station, as well as the operation status of the power generation equipment of the power station, the existing service providers can usually rely on past service experience to provide customers with more accurate prediction services; Because the average annual service amount of power forecasting service is low, usually 50,000-80,000 yuan, for new energy power stations, the benefits from high-quality services are far greater than cost of service procurement, so after receiving services, customers usually do not change service providers. According to Guoneng's new prospectus, 2018-2021H1, the company's new energy power generation forecast service power station retention rate remained high and upward.
High gross profit : The direct cost related to the power forecasting service of the Company is mainly the cost of meteorological data collected externally, and such cost is basically a fixed expenditure. With the expansion of the scale of the existing customers of the Company, the scale effect can be gradually formed, so the gross profit margin is always maintained at a relatively high level. According to the new prospectus of Guonengri, the gross profit rate of new energy power generation forecast service of 2018-2021H1 Company has been at a high level of about 95% for a long time.
4. State Grid Communication: the leader of power digitalization under the State Grid, and the pioneer
company of "virtual power plant + energy storage" is the leading enterprise of power digitalization under the State Grid. Relying on the international power grid, the company actively grasps the opportunity of new power system construction, and the basic situation of power grid digitalization business is stable. As of 2021, the company's power marketing 2.
Hand in hand with Guoxuan Gaoke to embrace the blue ocean of energy storage. Anhui Jiyuan Software, a wholly-owned subsidiary of the company, provides a one-stop customized platform for digital operation and efficient operation of energy storage stations. In October 2019, the energy storage cloud network operation service platform was officially launched. The platform collects omni-directional data such as battery management system, energy management system, environmental system, battery voltage and temperature of the energy storage power station through the station-end edge processing component, gathers them to the cloud platform, and supports the operation, maintenance, dispatching and monitoring of the energy storage power station based on the platform model algorithm and business process. In August 2021, the energy storage cloud network operation service platform independently developed by Jiyuan Software was put into full production and application.
Guoxuan Gaoke is one of the earliest power battery companies to enter the capital market in China. In October 2019, Guoxuan Gaoke and Jiyuan Software signed a strategic cooperation agreement in Hefei, Anhui Province, and the two sides agreed to carry out in-depth cooperation in the field of energy storage. In September 2021, Guoxuan New Energy's 75 MW/300 MWh energy storage power station was successfully connected to the energy storage cloud network operation service platform. Through the unified management of the platform, the utilization efficiency of the power station's energy storage equipment reached 100%.
The company's virtual power plant product strength continues to break through . In June 2022, the "Virtual Power Plant Precision Regulation and Control Simulation and Demonstration Platform" independently developed by the company passed the third-party authoritative organization test, and completed the deployment and trial operation in Jinzhong-Yuci Test Center of Shanxi Electric Power Research Institute of State Grid. This project is the most complete virtual power plant platform with aggregate resources at the park level in China.
5. Haixing Power: Domestic and foreign power solution provider, new energy starts a new journey
The company was founded in 1992, focusing on energy transformation, providing intelligent products and power distribution solutions for global power customers. Provide overall solutions such as household energy storage, industrial and commercial energy storage, microgrid, distributed water treatment and water sales management to residents, industrial and commercial and public utilities to promote the popularization of clean energy. At present, the company's products have been sold to more than 90 countries and regions around the world, including 46 "the Belt and Road" countries, and it is one of the most competitive enterprises with the widest overseas marketing and after-sales service network in the industry.
Intelligent power distribution: two-wheel drive at home and abroad, with broad market prospects. Market space : Overseas, according to the analysis of markets and markets report, the global smart grid scale is about 43.1 billion US dollars in 2021, and is expected to reach 103.4 billion US dollars in 2026. There is a large demand for overseas smart grid digital construction and transformation. Domestically, during the 14th Five-Year Plan period, the State Grid and the South Grid planned to invest nearly 3 trillion yuan, with an average annual investment of 580 billion yuan. Company layout : Overseas, in 2022, the company's smart power products maintained the first market share in Brazil, achieved the first market share in Indonesia for the first time, won a record high in the European market, and achieved overseas market revenue of 1.845 billion yuan, an increase of 13. The company's new distribution network products continue to win the bid in 30 provinces, municipalities and autonomous regions across the country. At the same time, the company has a complete series of products of the Internet of Things and has won the bid for the Internet of Things.
New energy: build a global channel for new energy, with overall solution capability . In line with the global development trend of new energy, the company continues to accelerate the improvement of new energy product system integration capabilities and technical service capabilities, build new energy global channels, and has gradually formed a three-in-one management and control system of product-marketing-delivery. In the domestic market, the company takes the overall solution of optical storage and charging and the integrated energy management solution as the entry point of the new energy business, and bases itself on the four bases of Zhejiang, Jiangsu, Guangdong and Hainan to start and develop the new energy user side market of domestic industry and commerce.
According to the current situation of mature industries in Europe and the United States, virtual power plants have released huge growth space in the domestic market, and the industrial development prospects are considerable. In the following, we will make a specific analysis on this basis.
1. The development goals of virtual power plants in domestic and foreign markets are obviously
different. Europe takes the aggregation of power generation resources as its main goal . On the one hand, European virtual power plants get a share of service fees by helping traditional power plants reduce costs, on the other hand, they directly participate in power trading and ancillary services. Taking Next Kraftwerke in Germany as an example, by 2022, 15346 distributed energy units have been aggregated, including photovoltaic, battery energy storage, electricity to gas, electric vehicle, industrial load participating in demand-side response, and the installed capacity of power generation has reached 12300 MW. Electricity traded in 2019 15.
Virtual power plants in the United States are mainly built for demand-side response. By controlling the dynamic changes of electricity price and power policy, power users can be guided to temporarily change their inherent habitual power consumption mode, so as to reduce the power load or obtain the energy storage in the hands of users to ensure the stability of the power grid system. The representative is Tesla's PowerWall home energy storage device, which can be charged by solar panels during low electricity prices or during the day, and transmit electricity to the grid when the grid load is too high. Tesla guides users to participate in this mode through incentives. In California, users can get $2 (about 13) for every kilowatt-hour of electricity delivered to the grid. As of August 2022, 2500 Power Wall users have joined, which can provide up to 16.
Commercial demonstration virtual power plants in China mainly provide peak shaving services. North Hebei Virtual Power Plant is the first commercial demonstration project of virtual power plant in China, which participates in the North China peak-shaving ancillary service market by aggregating a large number of distributed adjustable loads in multiple regions. According to the Operation Rules of North China Electric Power Peak-shaving Ancillary Service Market, the quotation range of 50% -70% of rated capacity is 0-300 yuan/MW • H, the upper limit of quotation of 40% -50% is 400 yuan/MW • H, and the upper limit of quotation of less than 40% is 500 yuan/MW • H. The cost of peak shaving service is shared by the corresponding thermal power enterprises and new energy enterprises. During the trial operation of Jibei Virtual Power Plant, the economic benefits are good, which creates considerable benefits for users and operators.
2. The top-level design is constantly improved, and the operation foundation is constantly consolidated
. The top-level design is constantly improved . On January 18, 2022, the Guiding Opinions on Accelerating the Construction of a Unified National Electricity Market System was issued. It is planned that by 2025, the unified national electricity market system will be initially completed, and the virtual power plant is expected to benefit from the mature business model of foreign countries and move towards marketization; In November 2022, two international standards of State Grid Jibei Electric Power were approved by IEC, which is the first international standard in the field of virtual power plants in the world, marking a major breakthrough in the field of virtual power plants in China from catching up to leading; In June 2022, Shanxi Province issued the Implementation Plan for the Construction and Operation Management of Virtual Power Plants, which provides the norms for virtual power plants to participate in different power trading markets; in August 2022, Shenzhen established a virtual power plant management center to promote the construction and management of virtual power plants to be more standardized. 
The operation foundation has been continuously consolidated . Jibei Virtual Power Plant participated in the North China (Beijing-Tianjin-Tangshan) peak-shaving ancillary service market during the trial operation period, with an average income of 0.18 yuan per kilowatt-hour. The virtual power plant platform of Guodian Investment Shenzhen Energy Development Co., Ltd. participated in the functional test of the electricity spot market, with an average income of 0.
AI per kilowatt-hour, with a promising prospect. In the future, with the establishment of a unified power market system, the integrated design and joint operation of medium and long-term, spot and ancillary service markets, the improvement of market mechanism and market-oriented electricity price trading mechanism, the enhancement of data integration and processing capabilities of virtual power plants by superimposing AI empowerment, the unified coordination and control capabilities, the improvement of calculation accuracy and response speed, and the benchmarking of foreign countries. The development prospect of virtual power plant in China is very promising.
3. The demand side of the virtual power plant is strong, and the market space is huge
. The demand side of the virtual power plant market has a strong demand for load regulation capacity. With the large-scale access of renewable energy, the "double high" and "double peak" characteristics of the power grid are obvious, and the reserve capacity is insufficient. In extreme cases, the reserve capacity gap of the power grid will reach 200 million kilowatts in 2030. It is estimated that the maximum daily peak-valley difference rate of power grid load will reach 36% during the 14th Five-Year Plan period and 40% during the 15th Five-Year Plan period, and the peak shaving pressure of power grid will continue to increase. The phenomenon of insufficient time and flexibility regulation ability of power system is further aggravated, so it is necessary to take various measures to improve the system regulation ability and ensure the balance between supply and demand. By the end of 2021, the national maximum load is about 1.2 billion kilowatts. According to the 5% adjustable capacity stipulated in 2021, the adjustable load capacity is about 60 million kilowatts. The response capacity of each province is uneven, which is still insufficient to cope with the extreme peak-valley difference in the future. The reserve capacity gap needs to be made up urgently. The high demand pushes the construction of virtual power plants to the wind.
According to the minimum regulation capacity, the virtual power plant will have a market space of 100 billion yuan in the future. It is expected that the terminal electrification will increase rapidly in the future, and the power consumption and maximum load will show bipolar growth. According to the Blue Book of Energy, it is estimated that the electricity consumption of the whole society will reach 9.Authorities predict that the electricity consumption of the whole society will reach 10 trillion kilowatt-hours in 2030, and the maximum load will reach 15.7 and 17 respectively. From the perspective of adjustable load demand, according to the construction of an adjustable load resource bank of not less than 5% of the maximum load in the whole country, it is estimated that by 2025, about 78.5 million kilowatts of adjustable load resource bank will be built. By the end of 2030, due to the increase in the proportion of renewable energy, the response capacity of the adjustable load resources to be built will be improved, and the capacity of the resource pool will be about 106.2 million kilowatts by 6%. Considering the feasibility of the project, the adjustable resource potential of the virtual power plant can be calculated according to the demand capacity of the response capacity and the investment cost of 1000 yuan/kW. It is estimated that in 2025 and 2030, the investment scale of the virtual power plant will be at least 78.5 billion yuan and 106.2 billion yuan respectively.
浙公网安备33010802003254号