The Zhitong Finance App learned that Guoxin Securities released a research report stating that virtual power plants can achieve profits by providing services such as peak cutting and valley filling, auxiliary services, energy efficiency management, and deviation assessment compensation, as well as participating in the electricity spot market, green power green certificate trading, CCER trading, and capacity market. Currently, China's virtual power plants are in the early stages of development. The main source of profit is demand-side response subsidies. In the future, the size of the virtual power plant market is expected to continue to expand due to factors such as continuous reform of the power system mechanism, frequent extreme weather, widening net load peak and valley differences, increases in user-side aggregable resources, and changes in electricity prices. The bank believes that software and hardware equipment vendors and operators have all benefited significantly.
We recommend Nanwang Energy (003035.SZ), which is rich in flexible resources and promotes the transformation of load aggregators in an orderly manner; Core Energy Technology (603105.SH), which has a large development space with flexible resources; the Three Gorges Water Conservancy (600116.SH), which supports integrated energy service business based on electricity distribution business; and Suwen Electric (300982.SZ), which is gradually implementing virtual power plant business.
The main views of Guoxin Securities are as follows:
A new round of electricity reform was launched, focusing on the construction of new power systems and flexibly adjusting demand release.
The new round of power reform focuses on speeding up the construction of new power systems, and improving the flexibility of power systems is an important direction, especially after a high proportion of new energy sources are connected to the power grid in the future. Due to the intermittent and random characteristics of new energy sources, it will lead to problems such as reduced inertia of the power system and reduced frequency regulation capacity. It quickly consumes resources for flexible adjustment of power systems and drives the release of flexible adjustment requirements.
The virtual power plant aggregates a variety of flexible resources, and has outstanding advantages in economy and flexibility.
The virtual power plant can aggregate various user-side flexible resources such as distributed photovoltaics, energy storage, adjustable load, etc., to cut peaks and fill valleys and provide auxiliary services through scheduling flexible resources to ensure the safe and stable operation of the power grid. Compared with flexible resources such as flexible thermal power plants, pumped storage, and gas power generation after flexible transformation, virtual power plants have advantages such as fast climbing speed, free combination of capacity, and low investment costs.
The profit sources of virtual power plants are diverse, and multiple factors catalyze the acceleration of market size expansion.
Virtual power plants can achieve profits by providing services such as peak cutting and filling valleys, auxiliary services, energy efficiency management, and bias assessment compensation, as well as participating in the electricity spot market, green electricity green certificate trading, CCER trading, and capacity markets. Currently, China's virtual power plants are in the early stages of development. The main source of profit is demand-side response subsidies. In the future, the size of the virtual power plant market is expected to continue to expand due to factors such as continuous reform of the power system mechanism, frequent extreme weather, widening net load peak and valley differences, increases in user-side aggregable resources, and changes in electricity prices. According to estimates, the cumulative market size of the investment side of virtual power plants will be 131-22 billion yuan by 2025, and the market size of the virtual power plant operation side will be 129-21.6 billion yuan in 2025.
The competitive landscape of virtual power plants and the key elements of competition:Currently, most virtual power plant projects in China are mainly demonstration projects. There are no large-scale virtual power plant operators, and the virtual power plant market pattern is scattered. Judging from the composition, operation and profit model of the virtual power plant industry chain, the key elements of competition in the virtual power plant industry are resource aggregation, information prediction, and transaction operation.
Overseas virtual power plant development review:1) German virtual power plants mainly integrate distributed power generation resources and can participate in the wholesale market, the daytime market, and balanced services. Germany uses a balanced group mechanism to make all energy suppliers assume balanced obligations and stimulate demand for flexible resources. 2) The California Virtual Power Plant mainly integrates demand-side resources and can participate in recent and real-time energy markets and rotating/non-rotating backup markets. 3) Australian virtual power plants mainly integrate energy storage resources and can participate in the wholesale market, the wholesale demand response market, the six FCAS FM auxiliary service markets, reliability and emergency reserve transactions, and provide distribution network support services.
Risk warning:Policies fall short of expectations; increased competition in the market; risk of electricity price fluctuations; falling subsidies.