Key Success Factors For Home Energy Storage
The First is product, namely product power. In essence, home energy storage is a “quasi-household appliance”, similar to air conditioning, so the design requirements for product force are relatively high, including appearance, size, portability, noise, etc., which may become an important determinant of consumers’ purchase. At the same time, excellent products have long-term vitality.
The second is the market, that is, brand, channel and after-sales service. Home energy storage products, in essence, there is no too strong technical barriers, similar to home appliances. But to get the product out there, the key is to sell it, and keep selling it. This depends on the market, mainly the brand, as well as an extensive channel network, including follow-up after-sales service. At present, the channel network mainly relies on the original household photovoltaic, inverter, installer or financial service institutions and other channels. Market is the core element of home energy storage business, which is related to business success or failure.
The third is supply chain, that is, cost and quality control. Home energy storage is mainly system integration, and the hardware is mainly purchased, so it is important to integrate the upstream supply chain. This is why lithium, inverter and other related enterprises are involved in this field, because of the innate advantages of industrial chain integration. In addition to the upstream hardware resources, there are also downstream channels, installers, after-sales service, financial institutions and other partners to integrate resources. Only the realization of effective resource integration, in order to maximize the cost reduction.
The fourth is premium force, namely selling price and gross profit. Home energy storage, as a system integration business, has low gross profit. Meanwhile, due to the high sales expense and rigidity of 2C business, the net profit margin will not be too high. Therefore, the selling price of products is highly sensitive to business profits. Only sufficient premium and corresponding gross profit can make the business sustainable, otherwise it is difficult to maintain. In fact, the prices of existing top players are all relatively high and the difference is increasing, which also reflects their different product positioning and brand premium, and also gives a lot of competitive pressure to the latecomers.
In addition, providing commercial innovation in financing mode for users will also help promote home energy storage business and improve its competitiveness. This has been a successful case in household PV, and will be analyzed in the next issue of household PV. In any case, home energy storage is also essentially a financial asset and thus has a financial basis for innovation.
In terms of strategic opportunities for home energy storage, Europe and The United States are ahead of China at present, and their demand for household photovoltaic penetration and power stability is more advanced. Therefore, the overseas home energy storage market is more mature than the domestic market, which is also the priority market for the extended family energy storage brands to expand. Of course, with the increase of household photovoltaic power in our country, and the expansion of mid-range electric cars, especially in the northern hebei, shandong, henan, jiangsu, anhui, such as light resources in northern plains, the combination of “household photovoltaic + electric cars” mode will be more mature early, here will be the place where domestic household energy storage was the first to mature, Thus, a closed-loop model of “household PHOTOVOLTAIC + home energy storage + electric vehicles” is formed. The future is worth looking forward to.
