Xu Yi of Yinghe Technology: the field of lithium power equipment needs innovative "play" in the era of TWh.

Since the beginning of this year, the expansion of power battery capacity in the global market (including construction, preparation and planning) has exceeded 2000GWh. almost all of the expansion projects come from head battery companies such as Ningde era, LG New Energy, Fudi Battery, Yiwei Lithium Energy, Fuleng Technology, Guoxuan Hi-Tech, Honeycomb Energy and so on.

In the face of the acceleration of global automobile electrification and the explosive growth of energy storage industry under the "double carbon" strategy, the era of battery TWh is expected to come around 2023. Thousands of GWh of capacity expansion, and all from the head battery companies, followed by the upstream industrial chain, including such as materials, lithium equipment and other areas of "differentiation" accelerated. Lithium power equipment enterprises based on the advantages of quality, delivery, efficiency, cost and R & D will be strong.

On the one hand, it can be seen that in the bidding for new production capacity equipment of battery enterprises such as Ningde era, Honeycomb Energy, Guoxuan Hi-Tech, LG New Energy and other battery enterprises, winning Technology, leading Intelligence, Liyuanheng, Haimuanxing and other enterprises frequently appear in the list of winning bids.

On the other hand, the bid-winning orders announced by the listed companies of related equipment also confirm this point. The newly signed orders in the first three quarters of this year have exceeded that of last year. As of October 20, the newly signed and winning orders of Yinghe Technology this year have exceeded 9 billion yuan (3 billion yuan is valid in 2020). As of August 25, Li Yuanheng's orders on hand are about 4.554 billion yuan.

"We have a high concentration of orders this year, basically for TOP10 customers with power battery installations in China, such as C, BYD, ATL, LG New Energy, Honeycomb Energy, Guoxuan, China Airlines, Yiwei, Ruipu and Xinwanda." Recently, Xu Yi, president of Yinghe Technology, said in a discussion with Zhang Yu, secretary general of Power Battery Application Branch of China Chemical and physical Power Industry Association and CEO of Battery China, that in her view, the power battery industry has entered a new industry cycle, one of its characteristics is that orders tend to be concentrated to major customers, and the trend is more and more obvious. The second is that customer production expansion and order distribution are very planned and hard demand. "Honeycomb Energy has placed orders for next year, and Company C is already talking about orders for the next three years, basically locking orders for the next three years."

Xu Yi further explained that in the past, when the electric vehicle and power battery market did not break out, everyone had a reserve capacity, but now there is a real rigid demand, and battery enterprises will send people to follow up soon after placing an order. It depends on your project management and equipment promotion; basically, the equipment must be debugged and put into use within two months after entering the factory. "the planning of battery enterprises is very strong, which is a great test of the product quality and delivery ability of equipment enterprises, but it also shows that the industry (at the beginning) has entered a healthy development track." Xu Yi added.

According to Xu Yi, in addition to domestic head battery companies, this year Yinghe also received orders for lithium battery equipment from overseas head mainframe factories and battery companies, such as BMW, Stellantis and Total battery joint venture ACC.

To be refined and strong, to win and cooperate with the "new play" in the new stage of power battery development.

As the first equipment manufacturer to put forward the lithium power whole-line solution, Yinghe Technology decisively announced in 2019 that it had abandoned the "whole-line strategy" and focused all its energies on the single-machine product strategy of "refinement and strength".

Behind this is Xu Yi's deep understanding of the new stage of power battery development.

"after I took office in 2019, I began to think about several questions: first, what is the positioning of our customer base? Second, what do our customers need? Third, how can we create value for our customers and help them excel? " According to Xu Yi, the target customer groups of Yinghe Technology are industry TOP10 and international head customers.

Xu Yi further explained that such enterprises have very strong R & D, design, and integration capabilities. "what they need is not how complete you are, what they need is state-of-the-art equipment, equipment that can improve efficiency and quality. Therefore, we regard" precision and strength "as our future development strategy, which has nothing to do with it. Our first and foremost task is to make the existing production line technology leading the world. Really help customers solve the pain point, the highest market share on it. "

In fact, under the guidance of this strategy, the share of many kinds of equipment of Yinghe Technology has verified the foresight of its strategy of "refinement and strength". Research information shows that Yinghe Technology has achieved product technology leadership in coating, rolling, slitting, winding, lamination, and assembly line. Take the coating machine as an example, Yinghe Technology took the lead in launching a double-layer coating machine with a coating speed of 1.6m 100m/m in the industry, and the coating width and speed are the industry benchmark. Mr Xu said that at present, Top10 customers accounted for 90 per cent of the market. "Sheng he is refined and strong on many stand-alone machines, accounting for more than 50 per cent of the entire market, and the market is big enough."

With a deep understanding of the market, customers and industry, Yinghe has made an early transformation under the leadership of Xu Yi, and has taken the initiative in the new round of production expansion of head battery enterprises. At present, Yinghe Technology has become an important supplier to TOP10 battery customers in the key processes of lithium battery, such as roll separation, winding / lamination, assembly line and so on. In addition, Battery China has learned that Yinghe Technology has begun to supply customers with key equipment to meet the production of 4680 large cylindrical batteries.

How can equipment enterprises "help customers excel" under the new situation?

The demand for power and energy storage batteries has entered the "TWh" era, and the scale of battery production capacity of head enterprises often has hundreds of GWH, which greatly tests the delivery and quality of upstream equipment enterprises. On the other hand, for equipment manufacturing enterprises, improving the manufacturing rate and efficiency through technological innovation will also help battery enterprises to reduce manufacturing costs and delivery capacity on a large scale.

"I have always positioned Yinghe Technology as a technology-based company," Xu Yi explained. "Technology-based companies help customers through technological innovation." the mission of Yinghe is to 'help customers achieve excellence and achieve the dream of strivers'. As a lithium equipment enterprise, through continuous technological innovation, subverting the process, improving efficiency, and helping customers save costs, I think the value of the enterprise is reflected. "

In Xu Yi's view, the significance of every product developed is to help battery enterprises achieve a substantial improvement in technology, efficiency, cost and so on. "take an assembly line equipment we developed as an example," Xu Yi said during the discussion. This machine combines the original three types of equipment into one equipment. As far as customers are concerned, the site, personnel, and energy consumption have all been greatly reduced, and the first pass rate of the production line has also been increased.

The company mainly promotes the three-station high-speed stacking machine and its related slicing and stacking all-in-one machine, the average efficiency of the single machine can reach 0.15sshock p, which greatly improves the lamination manufacturing efficiency, and the products are favored by head customers such as Honeycomb Energy, Yiwei Lithium Energy, Guoxuan Hi-Tech and so on. The company has been working closely with LG New Energy since 2018, and the high-speed production and winding machine jointly developed by the company has reached the world's leading level in terms of efficiency and automation.

Based on the enterprise concept of stand-alone refinement, Yinghe Technology has continuously launched the industry's cutting-edge technology and equipment in lithium battery manufacturing in recent years. "the next goal is to use digital and intelligent means to help customers become more outstanding in management." Xu Yi said.

Large-scale manufacturing of power batteries and the landing of large-scale power battery projects are great challenges for power battery enterprises themselves.

"Digitalization and intelligence can cover the front, middle and back stages of power battery manufacturing. Based on years of deep understanding of lithium battery equipment and manufacturing process, Yonghe Technology has established a complete set of digital and intelligent solutions to help battery enterprises achieve high efficiency, low cost and rapid project landing in large-scale expansion," according to the person in charge of Yinghe Technology, for example, according to production orders and models before delivery. Automatically change the process parameters of the machine to improve the conversion efficiency; In the production process to achieve early warning and resolution of equipment failures, product traceability, equipment movement and quality monitoring; post-natal equipment maintenance, parts repair, data interface docking and other functions to ensure the rapid realization of large-scale manufacturing.

Actively expand production capacity to prepare for the TWh era

Since the beginning of this year, due to the impact of a new round of large-scale production expansion of downstream power battery customers, there has been a "material shortage" and "equipment shortage" in the upstream of lithium batteries.

In order to actively respond to the production expansion needs of customers, in terms of ensuring high-quality delivery, Shenghe Technology actively "prepares for war". On the one hand, it takes ensuring the high-quality and efficient delivery of on-hand orders as the primary goal; on the other hand, through the expansion of the park, increase production capacity, increase personnel, digital management upgrading, strengthen the supply chain system and other dimensions, continuously improve delivery efficiency and capacity.

It is understood that the construction area of Dongjiang Industrial Park newly expanded by Yinghe Technology last year is about 400000 square meters, which has been put into use one after another this year, and the annual output value can reach 6 billion yuan at full production. In August this year, Dongguan Jinke Industrial Park, a new industrial park owned by Yinghe Technology, opened and put into production. The factory area of the park is 139000 square meters, and the estimated annual output value after delivery will reach 2.6 billion yuan. Compared with the original Yakang Park, the area and output value have tripled. Another subsidiary, Hehe Automation's Tangxiaxin Industrial Park, will also be put into production before the end of the year. Hetangxia Industrial Park has a construction area of about 120000 square meters, and it is estimated that the output value after full production will exceed 2 billion yuan. Coupled with bases such as Yinghe Huizhou Digital Park, it is estimated that the company's overall annual output value will exceed 13 billion yuan, which will greatly improve delivery capacity and efficiency.

At present, China's Yangtze River Delta, southwest and other regions have become an important battery industry chain base, head battery enterprises are competing in this layout. Xu Yi said that in order to get closer to customers and improve delivery efficiency, Chenghe will also consider the layout of production and R & D bases in the Yangtze River Delta and southwestern regions such as Chengdu and Chongqing in the future to fully prepare for the demand for high-quality equipment in the TWh era.