With the growing global demand for renewable energy and continuous technological advancements, the photovoltaic (PV) energy sector offers vast market opportunities for entrepreneurs. How can one accurately find their footing in the fast-evolving industry? How to leverage unique strengths? How to quickly identify shortcomings and take targeted measures? As Isaac Newton put it, "If I have seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants."
On April 26, the "Starting's Talk" 2024 First Startup China Entrepreneurs Forum was held in Jiangyin City, Wuxi, Jiangsu Province.
Scene of the 2024 First Startup China Entrepreneurs Forum
At the forum, Zhu Hongjun, General Manager of Suzhou Whole-Nano New Material Technology Co., Ltd.; Wang Tongxin, Founder, Chairman and General Manager of Suzhou Hondol Material Co., Ltd.; Chen Jian, Executive Director of AdvanSol (Suzhou) New Energy High-tech Co., Ltd.; Chen Wei, General Manager and Executive Director of Jiangsu SowMax Tech Co., Ltd.; and Qian Feng, General Manager of Wuxi Jiatuo Photovoltaic Technology Co., Ltd., delivered keynote speeches on entrepreneurship.
Li Junfeng, Standing Director of the China Energy Research Society (CERS); Shu Hua, Vice Chairman of GCL Group Holdings Ltd.; Song Dengyuan, Chief Technology Officer of DASOLAR New Energy Technology (Quzhou) Co., Ltd.; and Li Shijun, Co-founder of Shenzhen S.C New Energy Technology Corporation, served as entrepreneurship mentors for the forum.
In addition, representatives from institutions including the Jiangsu Provincial Industry Technology Research Institute (JITRI), the Financial Specialized Committee of Jiangsu Province Renewable Energy Association (JSREA), Jiangyin Financial Investment Co., Ltd., China Merchant Bank International Capital Management (Shenzhen) Ltd., Changzhou Qitai Venture Capital Partnership (Limited Partnership), CNNC Huihai Wind Power Investment Co., Ltd., and Guangdong Desheng Electric Power Technology Co., Ltd., as well as over 100 entrepreneurs, scientists and investors from all links of the PV industry chain, attended the forum.
At the opening of the forum, Shen Hui, initiator of the 2024 First Startup China Entrepreneurs Forum, expressed sincere gratitude to all mentors for taking time out of their busy schedules to attend the event. He noted that records of our ancestors’ knowledge about the sun and the application of solar energy technologies in daily life date back a long time. With the rising demand for energy and growing emphasis on environmental protection, the PV industry has witnessed booming development in recent years as a cleaner and more sustainable energy supply system, and the research and innovation of PV technologies have become a hot topic in today’s scientific and technological field. Looking to the future, Shen frankly stated that hopes lie with young people, and how to provide a better communication platform for PV industry entrepreneurs in China has long been a question he pondered. His experiences in attending numerous domestic and international academic conferences in recent years have given him great inspiration. Through relentless efforts and multi-party coordination, his previous vision has become a reality. He hopes that the first Startup China Entrepreneurs Forum can provide a platform for exchange and sharing among colleagues in the PV industry, and boost the rapid development of the sector.
Shen Hui, Initiator of the 2024 First Startup China Entrepreneurs Forum
In his speech, Li Shijun, representative of the entrepreneurship mentors and Co-founder of Shenzhen S.C New Energy Technology Corporation, said that as a veteran in the PV industry, he has witnessed the development of China’s PV industry from small to large and from weak to strong. For the manufacturing industry, iterative innovation mainly focuses on technology, equipment and materials. However, individual innovation has limitations. Only entrepreneurship led by scientific and technological innovation can turn ideas into products, serve thousands of households and drive industrial development. In this process, entrepreneurs should not be self-centered, but think from others’ perspectives. Only when products have a market can enterprises be profitable, and the market is determined by demand. Therefore, for entrepreneurs, to explore the market, they must earnestly study customers’ needs and define their own positioning accurately.
Li Shijun, Co-founder of Shenzhen S.C New Energy Technology Corporation
In the keynote speech session for entrepreneurs, Zhu Hongjun, General Manager of Suzhou Whole-Nano New Material Technology Co., Ltd., delivered a speech themed "Suzhou Whole-Nano’s Efficiency-enhancing and Self-cleaning Solutions for PV Power Plants". He introduced the application of nano-coating technology in the self-cleaning field of PV power plants. Zhu said that the cleaning agent developed by Suzhou Whole-Nano New Material Co., Ltd. specifically for PV power plant operation and maintenance cleaning is suitable for various power plant environments. The company’s nano self-cleaning products have photocatalytic activity, which can decompose methyl orange under sunlight, demonstrating high-efficiency photocatalytic performance in breaking down organic pollutants on substrate surfaces. The offshore PV anti-corrosion nano-coating product has passed the 1,000-hour salt spray corrosion test at the National Coating Quality Supervision and Inspection Center, featuring wear resistance, high hardness, UV resistance and damp-heat resistance; the PV power plant self-cleaning nano-coating has characteristics of high light transmittance, anti-static property, easy cleaning and high hardness; the anti-reflective nano-coating for PV module glass can effectively reduce light reflection on the glass surface; the anti-dust nano-coating for PV modules, adopting surface structure technology combined with in-situ pore-forming technology, can achieve a light transmittance increase of 2.2-2.3%; and the high-reflective nano-coating for bifacial PV modules has advantages of high reflectivity, aging resistance, UV curing and power output improvement.
Zhu Hongjun, General Manager of Suzhou Whole-Nano New Material Technology Co., Ltd.
Wang Tongxin, Founder, Chairman and General Manager of Suzhou Hondol Material Co., Ltd., introduced the company’s products and his thoughts on breaking the homogenization competition in the PV industry, under the theme "Four Major Encapsulation Material Technologies Driving the Third Revolution of PV Modules". He pointed out that in the over 20-year history of PV technology development, there have been two revolutions: one is the size revolution, and the other is the efficiency revolution. The previous two revolutions focused on improving the efficiency of power generation units, which are innovations along the Y-axis. Now the industry is entering the third revolution along the X-axis, which will bring more abundant and diversified benefits through technological innovation of materials themselves, and encapsulation materials will become an important part of this revolution. The three major development directions of encapsulation materials are functionalization, film thinning and low-carbonization. Suzhou Hondol takes "solving pain points in the new energy sector through material innovation" as its corporate mission. Taking the special encapsulant film solutions developed to address issues such as UV sensitivity of new high-efficiency solar cells as an example, Suzhou Hondol provides low-corrosion encapsulant films for TOPCon cells, light-converting encapsulant films for HJT cells, and thermoplastic encapsulant films for perovskite cells. He stated that in terms of carbon emissions, glass and current frame materials are actually high-carbon emission materials. If lightweight and frameless encapsulation is adopted, carbon emissions will be about half of those of double-glass and aluminum frame encapsulation.
Wang Tongxin, Founder, Chairman and General Manager of Suzhou Hondol Material Co., Ltd.
Chen Jian, Executive Director of AdvanSol (Suzhou) New Energy High-tech Co., Ltd., shared his insights around the "3.0 Generation Intelligent Micro-string Inverter". Currently, most distributed PV power plants mainly use string inverters, while traditional string inverters face problems such as safety risks, installation design challenges and low operation and maintenance efficiency, as well as limitations in power generation capacity. According to Chen, the intelligent micro-string inverter developed by AdvanSol effectively addresses the above issues. First of all, it can reduce the system voltage to 1V within 30 seconds, achieving rapid and safe shutdown at the module level. Secondly, it can quickly and accurately locate system fault points, saving nearly 50% of operation and maintenance costs. Thirdly, its unique module-level optimization solution enables each module to output maximum power, increasing the average annual power generation by at least 10%. In addition, equipped with AdvanSol optimizers, modules can be installed at multiple angles, effectively increasing the installed capacity of a single rooftop system by more than 20%. Experiments show that various performance indicators of AdvanSol’s 3.0 Generation intelligent micro-string inverter solution far exceed those of leading products in the industry, achieving remarkable results in efficiency improvement and cost reduction.
Chen Jian, Executive Director of AdvanSol (Suzhou) New Energy High-tech Co., Ltd.
Chen Wei, General Manager and Executive Director of Jiangsu SowMax Tech Co., Ltd., delivered a keynote speech titled "Innovative Solutions for New-generation Intelligent PV Modules for Multiple Scenarios". He gave a detailed explanation covering team introduction, project background, product solutions and design, as well as the company’s future planning. Chen said that digital intelligent operation and maintenance creates a demand for module-level data collection and monitoring based on MLPE (Module Level Power Electronics) technology. Targeting the two major pain points of current MLPE products, namely high cost per watt and low cost-effectiveness in power generation improvement, Jiangsu SowMax Tech has carried out targeted R&D. The company’s products can achieve optimal safety, realizing module-level optimization, monitoring and shutdown with rapid 0V shutdown function; they can also achieve cost control, with the cost of independent intelligent optimization as low as 0.08 CNY per watt; besides, they can boost power generation, improving power generation efficiency by 5% to 10%; and they enable simplified operation and maintenance, realizing module-level monitoring and streamlined intelligent operation and maintenance to eliminate faults before they occur.
Chen Wei, General Manager and Executive Director of Jiangsu SowMax Tech Co., Ltd.
Qian Feng, General Manager of Wuxi Jiatuo Photovoltaic Technology Co., Ltd., introduced the technical advantages of the company’s PV cell equipment. The company’s core technologies focus on vacuum and plasma-related technologies, and it mainly produces key PV cell equipment based on vacuum technology. The company successfully developed the world’s first high-capacity PV IBC ion implanter between 2016 and 2017, and rolled out China’s first continuous production equipment for PV heterojunction hot-wire CVD in 2019, with the output cells achieving an efficiency of 24.74%. He focused on introducing the technical advantages of PECVD equipment for TOPCon cells and hot-wire CVD equipment for heterojunction cells. Unlike existing equipment that uses quartz tubes which require regular replacement, Jiatuo’s PECVD equipment adopts stainless steel materials that do not need replacement throughout the equipment’s service life. Its gas consumption and power consumption are both about half of those of quartz tube equipment, while the process effect is significantly improved. The main advantage of the heterojunction hot-wire CVD equipment lies in cost reduction. At present, the investment in a complete set of heterojunction cell production equipment is about 300 million CNY per GW, accounting for a large proportion of total cost expenditure. With Jiatuo’s equipment, the price of hot-wire CVD equipment can be reduced to about 110 million CNY per GW currently, and further to around 60 million CNY per GW in the long run, making the total cost of a complete production line less than 150 million CNY per GW.
Qian Feng, General Manager of Wuxi Jiatuo Photovoltaic Technology Co., Ltd.
Different from previous academic conferences and forums, after each entrepreneur’s sharing session at this forum, the four distinguished entrepreneurship mentors conducted in-depth exchanges and discussions with the entrepreneurs from multiple perspectives including product positioning, market promotion and brand building.
On-site Comments by Entrepreneurship Mentors
In terms of product positioning, the mentors suggested that entrepreneurs should gain a deeper understanding of market demand, interact actively with consumers, continuously adjust product positioning and enhance the market competitiveness of their products. In terms of market promotion, the mentors provided various channel and strategy suggestions to help entrepreneurs increase brand awareness and product sales volume. For brand building, the mentors recommended that entrepreneurs build a differentiated brand image, focus on the dissemination of brand stories, and improve brand recognition and customer loyalty. Meanwhile, the elaboration of new technologies by PV entrepreneurs from Startup China and the collision of ideas with the mentors triggered resonance and discussions among many online and offline audiences.
On-site Comments by Entrepreneurship Mentors
Throughout the long river of time, our predecessors, through hard work and selfless dedication, have built bridges of life that benefit future generations and remain evergreen. This grand gathering of entrepreneurs in China’s PV industry has integrated the latest insights of entrepreneurs, the high-level comments of experts and the inspiring on-site dialogues, bringing infinite inspiration for industry colleagues to explore the development path of the sector, and will also inject new impetus into the high-quality development of China’s PV industry.