Gotion, Sineng Electric and Xi'an Kaixuan are each responsible for their respective segments. After the 1.8 GWh order from Egypt, China's energy storage export business no longer merely sells batteries.
Gotion, Xi'an Kaixuan and Sinexcel have simultaneously entered the execution phase of the 1.5GWh energy storage project in Egypt, marking the shift of China's overseas energy storage expansion towards station-level system delivery and compliance screening.
Foresee Energy notices that recently, three enterprises including Gotion High-Tech, Xi'an Kaixuan and Sinexcel have simultaneously entered the execution phase of two independent energy storage projects in Egypt, namely the Nefretet and Horus projects. The total rated capacity of the two power stations is 1.5GWh, and Gotion High-Tech's supply scale of DC-side systems in this project reaches 1.8GWh.
The division of responsibilities in this cooperation is clear: Gotion provides battery systems, Xi'an Kaixuan supplies EMS, PPC and SCADA, Sinexcel delivers 1.1GW grid-forming PCS, and China Energy Engineering Corporation undertakes the EPC general contracting. In the past, the products sold in overseas energy storage businesses were only the cells inside containers, while this time the complete system assembled according to station-level requirements is delivered.
On the day when the first batch of 50 heavy trucks departed from Gotion High-Tech's Jinzhai base at the end of September, few people noticed a detail: while this batch of 5MWh systems of Qianyuan Smart Energy Storage was shipped to Egypt, the grid-forming PCS of Sinexcel was waiting to be loaded at the port, and engineers from Xi'an Kaixuan had already obtained the factory acceptance test schedule for the Nefretet project.
The three Chinese enterprises are each responsible for a specific part, and their combined capabilities form a complete full-process delivery system. This change is more noteworthy than the project scale itself.
01
Battery enterprises begin to take charge of station-level matters
The role of Gotion High-Tech in these two projects is different from its role of selling battery packs overseas in the past few years.
Nefretet is located in the hinterland of the Aswan Desert, and Horus is built along the Red Sea coast. One has to withstand sand dust and high temperature, and the other needs to resist salt spray corrosion. The customized modifications made by Gotion for Qianyuan Smart Energy Storage include enhanced sealing structure and optimized liquid cooling heat dissipation path, and the coastal station adopts anti-salt spray protection process.
These modifications sound like minor adjustments at the product level, but in the operation logic of independent energy storage power stations, the thermal management strategy of the battery system directly determines the available capacity and cycle life of the entire station.
The owner handed over two stations with completely different climatic conditions to the same battery supplier for differentiated adaptation, which is equivalent to admitting one thing: companies that started with cell manufacturing have to take a step forward and take charge of the performance of the DC-side system in the real operating environment.
What is more worth exploring is the delivery rhythm. The first batch of 50 vehicles were shipped simultaneously from the two bases in Jinzhai and Nantong, and the expression of "whole-station design, system integration and engineering delivery capabilities" appeared in Gotion High-Tech's public statements. The company used to be labeled as a battery supplier in the overseas energy storage market, but now it is trying to prove that it can control the whole chain from cells to transformers on the DC side.
This transformation is driven by cost logic. The industry consensus is that the revenue model of independent energy storage projects depends on capacity availability and auxiliary service response speed. If battery manufacturers only sell cells, the operation data cannot be transmitted back to them, and the iteration of the next generation of products will lack the most critical on-site feedback. The operation data in the Egyptian desert is far more valuable than the cycle test results in the laboratory.
02
Control system providers get the admission ticket to discourse power
The name of Xi'an Kaixuan does not appear frequently in reports on overseas energy storage expansion. The company previously provided SCADA and PPC for the Abidos Phase II solar-storage project in Egypt, and this time it is awarded the full set of EMS, PPC and SCADA systems for the Nefretet and Horus projects.
PPC is the power plant controller, which is responsible for decomposing the power instructions of the energy storage station to each PCS unit; EMS manages the energy dispatch strategy; SCADA completes data collection and monitoring. The combination of the three is essentially the control brain of the whole station's operation.
A noteworthy detail is the scope of services. Xi'an Kaixuan's contract includes full-process technical support from factory acceptance test, site acceptance test to grid-connected acceptance. This means its engineers have to stay on site in Egypt until the station is connected to the grid, and work with Sinexcel's PCS commissioning team and Gotion's battery system commissioning personnel in the same temporary office to check the point list.
This scenario rarely appeared in the past overseas energy storage expansion practices. Control system providers usually leave after delivering the goods, and the on-site commissioning is coordinated by the EPC general contractor. Now the control system is pushed to the front stage, because the grid-forming energy storage has extremely strict requirements for the response time of the control loop.
The batch of PCS from Sinexcel is equipped with the second-generation enhanced hybrid grid-forming technology, and the black start capability of the whole station is a hard index set at the beginning of the design. The grid-forming control algorithm is deeply coupled with the underlying control logic of PCS. If EMS and PPC do not conduct joint commissioning in the same time sequence framework, the success rate of black start cannot be guaranteed.
Xi'an Kaixuan's access to the full life cycle service contract indicates that both the owner and the general contractor are fully aware that the control system is no longer an accessory.
03
Financing thresholds are screening supporting enterprises
Foresee Energy believes that the loan approval of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) for the Nefretet and Horus projects better demonstrates the screening effect than the projects themselves.
The total maximum amount of the two priority loans is 223.5 million US dollars, of which 162.5 million US dollars is for the Nefretet project and 61 million US dollars for the Horus project; the loan for the Nefretet project covers more than half of its total cost. The funds from multilateral development banks are not only judged by project returns, ESG and supply chain traceability are hard requirements in the due diligence list.
Supply chain traceability is one of the requirements. Data including which mine the lithium for batteries comes from, which factory sinters the cathode material, and how the emissions in the transportation link are accounted for are not optional items in EBRD's due diligence list.
Gotion High-Tech mentioned in its sustainability-related disclosures that it will help downstream customers meet the low-carbon access and compliance requirements of overseas markets, which points to a very clear direction. Sinexcel obtained the recognition of Ministry of Industry and Information Technology's green supply chain management enterprise in 2024, and it has carried out carbon footprint assessment and supplier hierarchical management for at least two years; most of the carbon emissions of grid-forming PCS come from power devices such as IGBTs and capacitors, and whether it can trace the supplier's carbon data to the device level determines whether it can continue to enter the shortlist of EBRD projects in the next round.
Xi'an Kaixuan is the most variable one. The company has a registered capital of 10 million yuan and 20 insured employees. It focuses on control systems and engineering services, with a low proportion of hardware, so its natural carbon footprint pressure is lower than that of battery and PCS manufacturers. But EBRD does not only look at product carbon emissions, but also at the management system: whether there is an independent environmental and social management framework, and whether there are auditable procurement ledgers.
The owner may not ask these questions, but the bank cannot avoid them. Xi'an Kaixuan entered this project relying on its joint commissioning capability for EMS, PPC and grid-forming PCS, but in the next round of independent energy storage bidding in the Middle East and Africa based on EBRD financing template, even with excellent technology, it cannot pass the pre-qualification if it cannot provide qualified ESG documents.
This is the essence of the screening effect: multilateral development banks are reshaping the access rules of the energy storage supply chain with financing conditions. Owners care about on-schedule grid connection, capacity and response speed; banks care about whether any link in the supply chain will cause risks during the whole life cycle. The intersection of these two concerns determines who can stay in the game.
Gotion High-Tech and Sinexcel passed the review this time, and their previous investment in the ESG system has become a hidden premium in the Egyptian contract; Xi'an Kaixuan passed the review for the time being due to its small scale and light compliance burden, but the situation will be different in the next round.
EBRD's energy storage project reserve in Egypt is more than these two. After Scatec's Obelisk project, there is the Dandara project, and the 1.2GW PV with 600MWh energy storage project in Minya is already in the loan approval process. Subsequent tenders will continuously raise the requirements, that is, supporting enterprises without carbon footprint ledgers, supplier hierarchical management and traceable procurement records cannot even get the bidding qualification. Overseas energy storage expansion is shifting from "choosing the cheapest option" to "choosing the compliant option", which is good news for leading enterprises, and a real threshold for second and third-tier suppliers. The window period will not last long.
The two power stations in Egypt will not be put into commercial operation until 2027, so it is too early to talk about success or failure. But the start of delivery itself has revealed enough information. China's overseas energy storage expansion has been calling for "system-level delivery" for several years, but the number of actually implemented cases is very small.
The Nefretet and Horus projects bring three lines including battery, control and converter into the execution phase at the same time, the division of responsibilities of each party is written in the contract, and the interface responsibilities are clearly specified in documents. If this practice runs smoothly, a line of text will most likely be added to the bidding documents of subsequent projects: the bidder shall have station-level joint commissioning experience.
Those enterprises that are still quoting by container need to re-calculate their accounts.
This article is from the WeChat official account "Foresee Energy", and is authorized for release by 36Kr.