Have you ever seen that kind of photovoltaic advertisement in your hometown?
Even the second uncle in our village was tired of listening to the advertisements that came to promote, and complained that the rural areas were already saturated with energy storage.
I originally thought this was quite exaggerated, but as a result, I searched for the news of energy storage, good guys, not to mention the countryside, photovoltaic energy storage has been involved in Africa.
Last year, Chinese companies alone accounted for 50% of Africa's energy storage market.
Unlike energy storage in other regions, there is a demand for energy storage in other places because of the high price of electricity, and installing large batteries at home can save electricity costs.
For example, one kilowatt-hour of electricity in Germany costs about three yuan, and an ordinary family of three consumes 3,000 kilowatt-hours of electricity in a year, which is 10,000 yuan.
But installing a 5kW PV energy storage system can save 28%, not counting government subsidies.
But the people of Africa, that's purely because there is no electricity.
I still remember the power outage when I was a child, and my country friends should be no strangers to it, and it will be stopped every once in a while.
In some parts of Africa, power generation facilities have not kept up, and this is the case all year round.
Take South Africa, where domestic energy storage manufacturers have deployed one after another, for example, they have even developed an app that sends power outage notices to show the local power outage level according to the location.
For example, Level 2 is a power outage of 6 times every 4 days, an average of 3 hours per day, Level 4 is a power outage of 6 hours per day, and Level 6 is a 10-hour outage per day.
At most, it can often reach level 8, and the power is basically out of power all day.
But this is already the tallest of the short in Africa.
Because of other nearby countries, not to mention the power outage, not even the wires were pulled.
It is precisely because of South Africa's "relatively high-quality" power infrastructure, coupled with the commonplace power outages, that home energy storage has become the favorite of the local brothers.
In order to encourage everyone to engage in energy storage at home, the South African government also actively subsidizes, as long as your photovoltaic panels generate more than 275 watts a year, which is about equivalent to half a month of air conditioning on our side, the government will give you a tax rebate, up to $810.
If companies invest in these renewable energy industries, the tax reduction can even reach 125% in the first year, and not only will no tax be collected, but the government will also subsidize it.
See, this is no longer a simple business opportunity, and it must be punched.
Deye, which entered the market early, rushed to South Africa in 2019 to engage in a joint venture, and by the first half of 2023, they sold 1.1 billion yuan for home energy storage alone.
Seeing that people were eating like this, others rushed in, such as Daqin Energy, a major energy storage factory, Sungrow, a veteran photovoltaic factory that has been established for more than 20 years, and even Honeycomb Energy, which is engaged in power batteries.
But after all, this is Africa, the market size of small South Africa is less than 10 billion, and it can't resist this group of strong men taking turns to enter.
In the first half of 2023, South Africa saw a fourfold increase in the number of solar panels imported from China to 3.4 GKW, equivalent to the total production capacity of some of the power plants of the country's listed companies at peak production.
On the track of household use, due to the decline in the price of photovoltaic and lithium batteries, the cell factories dominated by honeycombs quickly started a price war by relying on cost advantages, and a number of Yiwu energy storage products rushed into the market with capital, and battery prices plummeted by more than 40% in half a year.
In 2023, the sales of household energy storage equipment increased by 32.7%, of which low-end products accounted for 70%, but this also made other energy storage manufacturers very uncomfortable. If you don't follow, you will lose your share.
But again, this is South Africa after all.
Under the social structure with a large gap between the rich and the poor, it is the manufacturers who have stepped on the pain points of the poor to grasp the market.
The vast majority of family users in the South African market only recognize the cost performance, the cheaper the better, and it is best to use it.
This leads to the fact that home energy storage manufacturers with mid-to-high-end positioning cannot afford to do much on a large scale, while small enterprises like Shangke and Mercer are like fish in water and eat share. The entire market has also rapidly iterated from the blue ocean to the red ocean.
In order to compete in all directions, in addition to the price volume, these manufacturers have also begun to roll up services, whether it is high-end or low-end, these energy storage companies have corresponding products in various sectors, even if they do not, they will find cooperative suppliers to procure, directly package and sell to customers.
Some businesses even offer products for free for customers to experience, so you can try out the results without spending a penny. There are also some people who buy two get one free, and buy two devices with a 5-degree capacity and get one of the same specifications for free.
But this still can't change the market situation of bayonets, like domestic e-commerce, it is numb, it is really numb.
As a result, the market began to become a little saturated. In South Africa, the increase in household savings increased by 11% from '21 to '22, and last year the growth rate slowed to 27%.
In addition, under the "unique" matching mechanism of the African region, some manufacturers with advanced technology and high-end brands have even been swept out of the household storage track, such as Huawei.
Because the South African brother actually doesn't care much about the core technology, photovoltaic and household storage are completely for emergency and do not need to be connected to the power grid at all, so the core technical requirements of the product, that is, it can be charged and discharged, and it does not explode.
As a result, Huawei's products, which are mainly aimed at the European and American markets, have maintained a consistently high level, but they are too ahead here and look out of place.
In terms of price, DY, the best-selling brand in the South African market, sells for 15,000 yuan at a reduced price, but Huawei's products are nearly double that of others, as high as 28,000 yuan.
However, Huawei did not withdraw because of this, but began to focus on the high-end market, and made efforts in government projects such as schools, hospitals, wineries, factories and power stations, as well as industrial and commercial groups, and won many cooperation projects.
In order to continue to expand the market, other manufacturers who are involved in the market have also chosen to transfer their strategies and began to seek opportunities in other African countries. After all, although Africa accounts for 60% of the world's solar energy resources, it only has 1% of photovoltaic energy storage equipment.
For example, Kenya, an East African country with the best sunshine in the world, relies on clean energy for more than 90% of the country's energy supply.
As well as those countries that are cooperating with China's infrastructure, the project is led by Chengdu University of Technology to build a huge grid in 12 countries in Africa, from South Africa to Nigeria, Tanzania and Mozambique.
Other manufacturers specializing in the mid-to-high-end home energy storage market have come up with a strange idea: even poor countries in Africa have to have a few rich people, so let's just make the money of the rich in poor countries.
To this end, companies such as Incorp Energy Storage went to Zimbabwe, which is the country where the currency has become a joke, and has launched a three-in-one photovoltaic storage and diesel generator, that is, in addition to photovoltaic and energy storage, diesel generators are also added, which can save more than 20% of electricity consumption for large electricity consumers such as mines.
However, this bit of meat in a small country is okay to feed one or two enterprises, and in the face of such a huge energy storage production industry in China, it can only be regarded as a fly leg, which is really not enough.
In a word, although energy storage manufacturers are dreaming of going overseas to pan for gold, the market situation in Africa is not necessarily so fantastic.
If you want me to say, in this hot land of Africa, we still have to solve the problem of whether there is electricity first, and then we can think about where to store electricity.
Finally, while munching on watermelon and blowing the air conditioner in the office, I had to sigh with emotion: thank you for the infrastructure level of our motherland.