() The Record Form of Investor Relations Activities was released on May 12, and the company was investigated by 57 institutions on May 10, 2022. The types of institutions are insurance companies, others, fund companies, overseas institutions, securities companies and sunshine private equity institutions.
The main contents of investor relations activities are introduced:
1. Fei Zhi, managing director of the company, introduced the company’s performance in 2021 and the first quarter of 2022 and its future development strategic plan. The senior management team had an interactive exchange on the company’s business and financial situation.
Second, the main content of investor interaction
Q: The company has entered the mobile energy business for more than a year since March last year, and its market influence is very great. Please introduce the overall development strategy of the company’s mobile energy business?
A: Since the first half of last year, the company has vigorously developed the mobile energy business, innovatively created the business model of mobile energy digital energy, with vehicles as the energy carrier, batteries as the core resources, and Hong Kong as the infrastructure. Relying on the company’s deep-rooted industrial layout and scientific and technological strength of the energy industry, it has built an ecological closed loop of green electricity, Hong Kong station, vehicles, batteries and energy storage, and jointly developed new energy vehicles in customized operation fields to integrate transportation resources. It provides electric vehicle charging service, battery life cycle management, commercial operation of charging and replacing power stations and mobile digital energy platforms, and is committed to providing convenient, economical and green integrated solutions for electric travel.
The company will cover the replenishment application scenarios of new energy vehicles, such as heavy trucks, logistics vehicles and online taxis, by digitally aggregating energy flow, information flow, capital flow, user flow and vehicle flow, and integrate the resources of automobile enterprises, battery enterprises, logistics enterprises, travel platforms and other industries and government resources, and carry out in-depth cooperation in all directions, with emphasis on North China, South China, East China, Southwest China, Lu Yu and Hubei.
In terms of products, the company will build an intelligent iterative product system with high efficiency, high compatibility and modularity of software and hardware, and create a product spectrum of heavy trucks, light trucks, passenger cars and energy storage products. In terms of platform, the company solves the pain points of service convenience and operational efficiency through digital drive, and builds an efficient and intelligent transportation energy ecosystem.
Q: Concerned about the continuous growth of the company’s performance and changes in its structure since its listing three years ago, can you introduce the composition of the relevant structure and some main factors, as well as relevant measures to improve its operating performance in the future?
A: Affected by multiple factors such as the epidemic situation, the implementation of the "double carbon" policy, international inflation and the energy crisis, the supply of coal and natural gas is tight, and fuel prices have entered an upward cycle, hitting record highs. Under the severe pressure of high fuel cost, the company’s clean energy business is generally under pressure in the industry. Under the background of large-scale losses in Daquan industry, the company also achieved a net profit of 1.004 billion yuan in the reporting period of 2021, a year-on-year increase of 21.8%. Since the backdoor listing in 2019, the performance has maintained steady growth for three consecutive years, and the compound growth rate of net profit for three years is as high as 44.6%. It should be said that it is not easy to get grades.
Facing the unfavorable external market environment, the company continuously optimizes its assets and business structure, and actively deploys renewable energy sources such as wind power that are not restricted by the fuel market price. In 2021, a number of wind power projects prepared and acquired by the company were put into operation. As of December 31st, 2021, the total installed capacity of the subordinate operating power plants controlled by the company was 3,777.44MW, of which wind power was 832.30MW, up nearly 60% year-on-year, and the installed capacity increased from 14% at the end of 2020 to 22%. The growth of wind power generation has largely compensated for the negative impact caused by rising fuel prices. At the same time, for the cogeneration projects of the company, which depend heavily on fuel costs, the company actively communicates with local price supervision departments and heat users, and transmits some pressure of rising costs to the downstream through mechanisms such as coal-heat linkage and gas-steam linkage. In addition, the company also actively adjusts its business strategy according to the fluctuation of fuel prices, optimizes the operation mode of units, and ensures the stability of operating profits to the greatest extent.
With the introduction of various measures such as increasing production, ensuring supply and stabilizing prices, as well as the control of the "double carbon" target and the formal implementation of carbon asset trading, fossil energy consumption will gradually decrease, and the tight balance between coal supply and demand will be effectively alleviated, and coal prices will surely fall from a high level and stabilize. On the other hand, with the easing of the situation in Russia and Ukraine, Russian energy supply will gradually return to normal. At the same time, the Russian implementation of increasing the annual supply of 10 billion cubic meters of natural gas to China and the completion and operation of domestic coastal LNG storage and transportation stations will gradually improve the storage and transit capacity, which will also effectively alleviate the domestic natural gas shortage and the natural gas price will also show a gradual downward trend. Therefore, the company believes that the current high fuel price is unsustainable, and will gradually return to the normal level in the future, and the company’s performance will also return to the level of steady growth.
In 2021, the company’s non-recurring gains and losses were mainly the investment income from the disposal of some subsidiaries’ equity. Since 2016, the company has invested heavily in the development of various clean energy projects such as wind power generation, garbage power generation, gas turbine cogeneration and so on. While the progress of investment and development is accelerating and the project reserves are increasing, the company comprehensively considers the reasonable level of asset-liability ratio, and formulates a differentiated project profit model according to different project conditions and business strategic planning.
After the development and construction of the power station is completed, it is a business model with reasonable commercial purpose and very common in the industry, which is derived from the company’s main business (power station investment and operation). Based on the company’s deep-rooted industry experience in the field of clean energy for many years, the company has a strong "development-investment-construction" ability, and can complete the investment and construction of the project at a lower cost and at a faster speed under the premise of ensuring compliance, and comprehensively judge whether the project is self-sustaining or transferred according to market conditions, overall debt ratio control of the company, return on investment of the project and other factors. As an important part of the company’s clean energy business strategy, the "development-construction transfer" mode of power station has become a normal business that the company will continue to promote in recent years and in the future.
In 2022, with the overall layout of the company’s mobile energy business put into operation, it is expected that the mobile energy business will have a corresponding scale and profit in the annual operation of listed companies. Based on the annual planning of clean energy and mobile energy business, the company has confidence in its operation in 2022.
Q: The market is very concerned about the company’s entry into the power exchange track. In terms of mobile energy, please introduce the business model, profit model and main composition of profit sources of the company’s power exchange business. What is the gross profit margin? How to improve the future profitability planning?
A: At present, the profit path of power exchange station operation in the market is mainly through power exchange operation, and the power exchange service fee is charged for profit. In addition, the company’s profit source will also rely on the power exchange operation to carry out R&D and customization of power exchange equipment, customization of power exchange models, battery banking, vehicle aftermarket, APP online mall and other businesses. At present, R&D and customization of power exchange equipment has become one of the important sources of revenue and profit. Through the design and development of commercial vehicle product lines (including heavy trucks, construction machinery and light trucks), passenger vehicle product lines and energy storage product lines, the company can realize charging technology licensing fees to third-party foundries.
The gross profit of power exchange operation is about 20%, and the Mao Lijiao of power exchange products is high, which can reach 40-50%.
There are mainly the following ways to improve the profitability of power station operation:
Reduce the cost of equipment, and reduce the price of power exchange equipment by 50% through self-developed equipment and entrusted OEM;
Centralized purchase of batteries and vehicles: sign a framework agreement with the main engine factory to reduce the cost of batteries and vehicles through centralized purchase, or leave the profit space in GCL;
Reduce the power cost: reduce the power cost through distributed photovoltaic/wind power supply, centralized electricity collection, energy storage and orderly charging, and guide drivers to change power at different peaks through time-sharing pricing strategy;
Reduce labor costs: through the development of intelligent operation and maintenance system, with the help of station technology, APP technology and the connection of data with vehicles, reduce the number of personnel and labor costs;
Reduce the rental cost of the venue: through the cooperative partners with resources, carry out batch negotiation and win-win cooperation to reduce the rental cost. At present, cooperation agreements have been signed with cooperative units such as Jiangsu Electric Power and Guangzhou City Investment.
Reduce the construction cost: standardize the project, lock the engineering quantity, and reduce the project cost through centralized bidding and procurement of cables and box transformers;
Improve the utilization rate of power exchange station: mainly control the proportion of stations, guide drivers to change power at different peaks in cooperation, change drivers’ shift habits, increase the number of single-station service vehicles, reduce queuing time and improve the utilization rate of stations.
Q: The company has paid dividends in cash for two consecutive years since its reorganization and listing in 2020, and attaches great importance to the sharing of dividends and profits among all shareholders. Please introduce the relevant dividend arrangement and dividend plan.
A: Since the backdoor listing, the company has attached great importance to investors’ returns. After filling up the losses of the original backdoor listed company in the first year of listing, it has paid cash dividends for two consecutive years. In 2021, the amount of dividends distributed increased by 33% compared with the first dividend, and the overall dividend distribution increased by 60%. Focusing on the long-term and sustainable development, the company comprehensively considered the company’s actual situation, development strategic planning and industry development trend, and established a scientific, sustainable and stable investor return planning and mechanism in accordance with the Company Law, the Securities Law and the relevant regulations of China Securities Regulatory Commission and Shenzhen Stock Exchange, so as to ensure the continuity and stability of the profit distribution policy.
The company’s earnings per share in 2021 was 0.7425 yuan. Based on the latest total share capital of 1,623,324,614 shares, it distributed a cash dividend of 2.00 yuan (including tax) to all shareholders for every 10 shares, totaling 324,664,922.80 yuan, accounting for 38% of the distributable profit at the end of 2021. In the future, the company will continue to pay full attention to the return to investors, maintain the continuity and stability of the company’s profit distribution policy, and take into account the long-term interests of the company, the overall interests of all shareholders and the sustainable development of the company on the premise of complying with relevant national laws and regulations and the Articles of Association.
On May 6th, the company’s annual general meeting of shareholders passed the profit distribution plan for 2021, and the announcement on the implementation of equity distribution was released on May 10th. The company will implement dividend distribution according to the regulatory rules.
Q: An overall development goal of the company’s mobile energy business in 2022, and how to formulate the development goal plan for the next three to five years.
A: The goal of the company’s mobile energy business in 2022 is to build 300 power stations and serve 30,000 vehicles. This year’s epidemic situation belongs to uncontrollable factors. As a result, batteries, vehicles and logistics are now tight, and the company is trying to overcome these factors. The "14th Five-Year Plan" target set by the company at the beginning of the year is to build more than 6,000 power stations to serve more than 500,000 to 600,000 new energy vehicles. According to the current industry development speed, the "14 th Five-Year Plan" may exceed the predetermined target number. When the company enters the field of power exchange, it will give full play to its own advantages and strive to enter the first phalanx on the track to become a head enterprise.
Q: The power exchange business has attracted great attention in the commercial vehicle market. At present, other enterprises, such as Guodian Investment and Sanyi, are gradually entering. What market advantages does the company have in this respect and how to lead?
A: At present, the commercial vehicle power exchange market is in the initial stage. With the early exploration of leading enterprises in the industry, various boundary conditions and financial schemes in the field of commercial vehicle power exchange have gradually matured, and market participants have also increased. However, given the large market share and space of commercial vehicle power exchange, no enterprise can monopolize the whole market, and the admission of more players can promote the whole industry to become more and more perfect.
As an energy enterprise, based on its own power resources and the industry integration ability of third-party operators, the company has been involved in the power exchange ecological chain from the aspects of power exchange standard formulation, power exchange station product development and production, and power exchange operation and maintenance services through more than one year of operation. On the technical level, the company’s power exchange products have multi-vehicle compatibility and intelligent management capabilities of software and hardware; On the financial level, the company has completed the first phase of the carbon neutral fund and raised special investment funds, and has diversified financial response capabilities in vehicle assets, battery asset management and regional investment; In terms of management decision-making, the company, as a rapid approval decision-making mechanism of private enterprises, can quickly judge market opportunities and respond quickly; At the same time, the company has an open and flexible cooperation mechanism, and is willing to develop together with high-quality enterprises in the industry to bring green energy into life faster and more widely.
Q: The new installed capacity of clean energy in 2022, and the proportion of plans and formats in the next 3-5 years.
A: In 2022, the newly added installed capacity of the company will be about 200MW, including Jiangsu Gaochun gas turbine project, Liaoning Chaoyang wind power project and Anhui Fengtai wind power project. It is estimated that the installed capacity will be about 1000－1500MW from 2022 to 2024, of which wind power projects account for about 50%, gas turbine projects account for about 40%, and garbage power generation and other projects account for about 10%.
It is planned that the new installed capacity of the company will be about 2.5GW within five years. The first goal is to expand the scale and increase the installed capacity; Second, the structure should be optimized, and the proportion of renewable energy, especially the proportion of wind power projects, should be gradually increased to enhance the profitability of the company and reduce the impact of fuel price fluctuations.
Q: On the clean energy side, the company focuses on the thermoelectric and wind power industries. Specific to these industries, is electricity price market-oriented, and what is the price adjustment mechanism?
A: At present, the pricing of the power industry is basically determined by the government. The National Development and Reform Commission and the Provincial Development and Reform Commission generally determine different on-grid tariffs according to various forms of power generation such as photovoltaic, wind power, garbage power generation and cogeneration, and at the same time, they will adjust the corresponding tariffs synchronously according to the changes in the fuel market.
Q: What is the completion of the company’s self-developed power station and the follow-up business arrangements?
A: According to the current trinity model of automobile, electricity and port, research and development has two aspects:
On the one hand, it is the research and development of power station, on the other hand, it is the development of standard battery pack. The two are synergistic, including the development of models that match the battery pack. So far, the company’s power station products can be completely mass-produced at the end of June, including commercial vehicles, passenger cars and logistics vehicles.
The characteristics of the company’s power exchange station are obvious. For commercial vehicles and logistics vehicles, based on the standard battery pack, the compatibility of multi-manufacturer models is realized, which provides a high degree of flexibility for the choice of operating models and also plays a key role in improving the efficiency of power exchange operation. At present, the passenger car switching station has also realized the compatibility and adaptation of many models, such as Dongfeng, Liuqi, Geely and Light Orange. The company’s self-developed power exchange port has many core technical advantages, including hardware embedding, intelligent operation and maintenance technology, unattended operation, etc. This system is the first release of the company in the industry.
In the development of standard battery packs, the company and car companies have completed the development of logistics vehicles, that is, lateral standard packs. The battery pack is about 86 kWh, and a single pack is 43 kWh, which realizes the interchange of power battery packs between different enterprises and different models. For commercial vehicles, the company has completed the development of 282 kWh battery pack. At present, there are more than 10 commercial vehicles, 4 passenger cars and more than 2 logistics vehicles that can be matched.
Q: What’s the progress of the company’s lithium battery materials?
A: The company actively responded to the national "double carbon" strategic deployment, quickly cut into the mobile energy track, cooperated with the innovation and development of upstream and downstream industries, expanded lithium battery resources and materials, and ensured the supply of strategic scarce resources such as lithium and phosphorus. The company aims to solve the reliable supply demand of batteries and downstream materials for large-scale power station operation, reduce costs, improve market competitiveness, and promote the rapid and steady development of mobile energy business.
In September last year, the company announced to invest in the establishment of Sichuan Hengxin New Energy Technology Center (Limited Partnership), and the company intends to extend its business to the lithium mine and battery materials industry, which are raw materials for mobile energy upstream. At present, we are actively planning and promoting the related transactions of potential investment target assets, and the company will disclose them in time according to the progress of the project.
In addition, the company issued an announcement in January this year and signed a cooperation framework agreement with the partners, aiming at locking in the large-scale phosphate rock resources of the target company, ensuring the resources for the company’s strategy of building the world’s leading mobile digital energy technology operator, and contributing to the resource layout and integration of the lithium battery-related industrial chain in the future. At present, the related work of this project is progressing normally.
Q: The annual business situation of comprehensive energy services of listed companies and the relevant development plans for 2021 are introduced.
A: The company’s comprehensive energy services closely focus on the country’s power market and new power system, and carry out power rationing, zero-carbon energy stations, carbon neutrality, energy storage and other related businesses. The new and innovative energy service business has made great progress in all aspects and laid the foundation for long-term development. At the same time, the integration of various businesses has produced better complementary effects.
In 2021, the company’s market-oriented trading service power consumption was 17.26 billion kWh, and the cumulative production capacity of power distribution projects was 1091MVA, a significant increase over the previous year. The company has the first-class qualification of the national "demand-side management service organization", and the user-side management capacity exceeds 13.5 million kVA；; Participated in the demand side response in Jiangsu Province, and the response load exceeded 700MW, up 40% year-on-year; The growth rate of virtual power plants is also very large.
On May 8, 2021, the company put into operation the first distribution network project of high-proportion renewable energy demonstration area in China-Jinzhai distribution network project. At the same time, more than 20 energy service projects such as energy storage, distributed energy and microgrid have been put into operation, and the service business of energy stations has been fully carried out. Last year was the first year of the domestic carbon market. The company carried out corresponding research and services such as carbon asset management, carbon asset finance and green electricity trading, and achieved good results. It also carried out basic research on blockchain technology in the field of power rationing and carbon assets, and applied for more than 60 related soft works, which increased the corresponding scientific and technological service capabilities.
Q: In terms of finance, will mobile energy companies have battery banking related business in the future, and which manufacturers are willing to engage in related business at present? What is the business model and profit model of corporate battery banking?
A: At present, most of the company’s mobile energy business will adopt the separation mode of vehicle and electricity. Many manufacturers and social capital are actively promoting the battery banking business, such as Weineng Battery Assets Co., Ltd., which has been established in Wuhan. The company has discussed with manufacturers, state-owned enterprises, local governments and other parties how to build an open battery asset management platform. At present, it has conducted in-depth communication with more than 10 manufacturers, and the company has announced that it has reached a certain strategic cooperation agreement with large state-owned enterprises such as Guiyang Production Control. The company will cooperate deeply with all parties to realize a new battery management model.
The battery asset management company takes battery assets as the core and manages the whole life cycle of the battery through the blockchain cloud platform. Its revenue comes from two parts, one is the revenue from battery rental, and the other is the subsequent utilization, including the cascade utilization of energy storage and dismantling of batteries to obtain the back-end profit. Through the cloud platform, the company comprehensively monitors the battery data, detects the battery status when changing power, improves the battery use efficiency, prolongs the battery life cycle, and thus increases the rental income. At the end of the battery lease period, the company will decide the subsequent utilization plan of the assets according to the battery state, give full play to the battery value, and thus obtain the management profit of the battery assets.
Q: The company is vigorously developing clean energy and mobile energy. What is the estimated annual capital expenditure in the past three years? How do the cash flow and debt ratio support the relevant plans?
A: The company will invest in clean energy business, including mobile energy business and upstream business, and it is estimated that the investment expenditure will reach 10 billion to 20 billion in the next three years.
How to support the above investment expenditure, in addition to using its own cash flow, the company will finance in various ways. The first is financing tools in the capital market, including refinancing tools in the stock market, such as convertible bonds. In addition, the public offering of Reits is booming now, and some assets of the company, such as wind power assets, have advantages in doing Reits. The company is also actively exploring the issue of public offering of Reits this year.
The second is to integrate industrial investment funds. The company will continue to expand cooperation with CICC and explore cooperation with other institutions.
The third is business cooperation. In terms of business development such as battery banking, the company strengthens cooperation with other business partners, such as cooperation with Guiyang Production and Control, including joint ventures in some fields, and even considers that in the future, mobile energy will be open to franchise and so on.
Fourth, there are many investors interested in the emerging business of mobile energy, and the company intends to open its business to a certain stage and conduct equity financing appropriately.
Fifth, traditional project financing, especially in view of the relatively stable income and cash flow of clean energy projects, this mature financing model has been used more before. Doing some project financing not only provides a source of funds, but also helps to improve the profitability of the whole project.
All the above financing methods can support the company’s business development. Among them, project financing is a partial debt financing, accounting for only a small part of it, so it will not have a great impact on the overall debt ratio. In business activities, the company will consider the impact of investment on the debt ratio in many ways, and some non-recurring gains and losses are formed because the company will screen and sell some projects if the debt ratio is expected to be too high on the premise of investment and considering the impact on the upper limit of the debt ratio.
Q: After more than a year’s operation, how is the company’s power exchange business and power business integrated, and in what aspects is the competitiveness improved?
A: After a year of exploration, clean energy business and mobile energy business have summed up some successful experiences. They have strong synergy and gradually built one of the long-term core competitiveness.
The first aspect of synergy is that clean energy business and large-scale power transaction provide low-cost electricity for mobile energy for power grid. First of all, the country is now carrying out the development mode of renewable energy with source network and storage, that is, connecting the power generation side, power supply side and load side, that is, the user side, which can be understood as the direct power supply mode. Clean energy business can provide low-cost electricity for mobile energy exchange stations, directly reduce costs and enhance competitiveness; Secondly, through the company’s more than 20 sales licenses in the country, the power purchase cost can be directly reduced by purchasing power on a large scale to supply mobile energy exchange stations. The first source network storage is being promoted in Zhundong County, Xinjiang and Inner Mongolia, and the second type of power procurement has adopted this model in the power exchange stations that have been put into operation in Sichuan.
The second aspect of synergy lies in the joint development of clean energy business and mobile energy business, which can avoid repeated investment and build a new ecology of "source network and storage". At present, the development of renewable energy power generation business, whether wind power or photovoltaic, needs to be equipped with energy storage power stations, which is currently a national mandatory policy. The power exchange station itself reserves batteries, and there are nearly 20% spare batteries. This spare battery is an energy storage facility. If the company not only produces clean energy in one place, but also builds a mobile energy exchange station, it can avoid repeated investment. Assuming that energy storage facilities are installed in clean energy production, there is no need to add standby power supply in the power station, which can also save investment. In addition, it can cooperate with the original team in the process of project development, construction and operation, and relying on the existing power plant to build a power station can reduce the investment in power access and site rent.
The third aspect of synergy is that the cascade utilization of energy storage batteries or power batteries can realize the construction of low-cost energy storage power stations. Mobile energy needs a large number of power batteries, and these power batteries can be used for energy storage power stations after 3-5 years of retirement. General electric power enterprises need to buy batteries when developing energy storage power stations, but for the company, the cost of battery purchase is close to zero. Through the timely use of batteries and the management of the whole product cycle, the clean energy business and mobile energy business can be highly coordinated.
The fourth aspect of synergy is that energy production and energy consumption can be connected to help clean energy consumption.
In fact, the power exchange station is a power consumption end. After the power system reform reaches a certain level, the company develops clean energy business and mobile energy business at the same time, which is equivalent to combining energy production and energy consumption, which can be used spontaneously and realize a virtuous circle.
Q: The annual report and the first quarterly report reveal that the company has built a total of 16 power stations, and 25 are under construction, showing a seasonal rapid upward trend. Just now, Mr. Fei also introduced 300 plans to build a station this year, so it is estimated that the new plan for the whole year from the second quarter to the fourth quarter, and the relevant land acquisition and other approvals involved in the construction of the station are in hand.
A: The company’s goal in 2022 is to build 300 power stations, serving about 30,000 vehicles. So far, the internal project reserve through the investment decision-making committee has reached 150. From May, these 150 power stations will be put into construction one after another, and at the same time, they will be linked with car companies. At present, the general construction period of the project is 2-3 months, and another 2-3 months will be used for vehicle climbing. It is conservatively estimated that 50, 100 and 150 power stations will be built in Q2, Q3 and Q4 respectively.
Because there are many reserve projects in the early stage, there will be a trend of heavy volume in the follow-up.
Q: Has the whole main business been affected by the epidemic this year, and what effective measures have been taken in production and operation?
A: This year, the company was greatly affected by the epidemic situation and the energy price of the Russian-Ukrainian war. The operation of some power plants around Shanghai, including the company’s power exchange business, had a significant impact. With the control of the epidemic situation, enterprises are now starting to return to work, and the heating and power generation of the company’s power plants are gradually becoming normal. The power exchange business is also racing against time to catch up with the construction period and bring back the delayed progress. In terms of production and operation, the company rationally adjusts the operation mode according to the demand of downstream enterprises to reduce the unit consumption index, expand fuel procurement through multiple channels and ensure fuel supply. In addition, the company took advantage of the opportunity of production reduction to do a good job in the overhaul and maintenance of the stopped equipment, and at the same time actively strive for subsidies related to the epidemic situation and strive for tax concessions or reductions.
The company is trying to overcome the impact of the epidemic and energy prices. On the basis of good business performance last year, the company has confidence in this year’s operation.
The main business of GCL Energy Technology Co., Ltd. is clean energy power generation, cogeneration and comprehensive energy services. The company’s main products are power sales, steam sales and color spinning products.
Details of participating institutions are as follows: