This weekend, tech investors all have to fly to Chengdu

The Second Half of New Energy Funds

Author | Lü Jingzhi Editor | Wu Ren

Source | Rongzhong Finance

A new energy fund has been launched in Chengdu.

Recently, Chengdu Communications Investment Group Co., Ltd., Chengdu Mengjiang Investment Group Co., Ltd., Hangzhou Bicheng Energy Development Co., Ltd., and Luneng (Hangzhou) Equity Investment Co., Ltd. signed a strategic cooperation agreement on the new energy industry. According to the agreement, the four parties will jointly establish a new energy M&A fund with a total size of 1 billion yuan, promote the settlement of Bicheng Energy's Southwest Headquarters and specialized operating entities such as intelligent operation and maintenance and asset operation in Pengzhou, Chengdu, and help the local area build a new pattern of green energy industry development with industry-finance collaboration and full-domain linkage.

Breakthroughs in the capital market and strengthened industrial implementation have converged in Chengdu. Behind this signing lies a quiet shift in the logic of new energy asset operation, as well as a proactive move by Chengdu on the green energy track.

The Birth of the New Energy Fund

Recently, Chengdu Communications Investment Group Co., Ltd., Chengdu Mengjiang Investment Group Co., Ltd., Hangzhou Bicheng Energy Development Co., Ltd., and Luneng (Hangzhou) Equity Investment Co., Ltd. signed a strategic cooperation agreement on the new energy industry. According to the agreement, the four parties will jointly establish a new energy M&A fund with a total size of 1 billion yuan, promote the settlement of Bicheng Energy's Southwest Headquarters and specialized operating entities such as intelligent operation and maintenance and asset operation in Pengzhou, Chengdu, and help the local area build a new pattern of green energy industry development with industry-finance collaboration and full-domain linkage.

Specifically, the four parties will focus on key projects that supplement and strengthen the industrial chain, such as photovoltaics, energy storage, integrated solar-storage-charging systems, and urban-rural microgrids. They will build an integrated smart energy regulation platform, carry out market-oriented trading businesses including spot power, green power, and ancillary services on a regular basis, and form a complete industrial closed loop of "project development - intelligent operation - asset capitalization appreciation".

On this basis, all parties will simultaneously expand supporting businesses such as green industry finance, energy digital platform construction, new energy industry chain investment attraction, and securitization of existing clean energy assets. By establishing a specialized asset holding platform, they will carry out integrated "investment, operation, management, exit" businesses for new energy projects. At the same time, leveraging their respective advantages in resource endowment, industrial operation, and capital platforms, the four parties will jointly build demonstration projects focusing on tracks such as charging microgrids, hub microgrids, and park microgrids.

This cooperation mainly focuses on photovoltaics, energy storage, integrated solar-storage-charging systems, and urban-rural microgrids. The four parties will also establish an integrated smart energy regulation platform, and continuously carry out market-oriented businesses such as spot power trading, green power trading, and ancillary services, so as to form an integrated closed loop from project development and intelligent operation to asset capitalization appreciation. The closed loop sounds professional, but it is actually simple when broken down: building a new energy project is only one step. Afterwards, there needs to be personnel to manage and operate it, and finally make it a tradable asset to complete the entire value chain.

It is worth mentioning that shortly before this signing, Bicheng Energy had just completed its first institutional REITs additional issuance for distributed clean energy assets. This is a signal that is easily overlooked but carries significant weight. Issuing REITs is not uncommon, but completing an additional issuance after listing demonstrates that market recognition of such assets is continuously improving, and the scale of asset operation is gradually expanding. Li Wenxuan, Chairman and CEO of Bicheng Energy, stated at the signing ceremony that the company has made important progress in directions such as energy asset securitization, AI-empowered power trading, and digital asset operation. Its investment focus on new energy assets has also received increasing attention and recognition from long-term capital.

By leveraging the local rich application scenarios, deeply exploring industrial and commercial rooftop resources, exploring new models such as integrated solar-storage systems and urban microgrids, and steadily promoting the implementation of large-scale energy storage projects, the new energy asset management platform that has successfully completed asset securitization will focus its regional deep cultivation efforts on Chengdu.

Investors interested in the new energy track should pay more attention to this signal. The signing is the visible part above the water, while beneath the surface lies the formation process of the entire asset operation logic and regional layout strategy. The event held in Chengdu this weekend appears to be an ordinary industrial cooperation agreement signing ceremony, but in reality, it is an important strategic move in the new energy capital landscape.

Why Chengdu?

The success of a cooperation has never been a one-sided matter.

Enterprises willing to invest resources in a city usually value more than just a temporary agreement. What they care about is whether the city can continuously support the subsequent industrial implementation. This time, the supporting capacity demonstrated by Chengdu comes from the superposition of two levels: the systematic layout on the capital side and the genuine openness of scenario resources, which complement each other and are indispensable.

First, look at the capital side. Local state-owned platforms are no longer just simple fund providers in such cooperations, but builders of industrial fund clusters. Using capital to leverage the high-quality development of the new energy industry, systematically promote the construction of the microgrid ecosystem, continuously expand the asset scale of the smart energy management platform, and improve the platform's dispatching capability and market-oriented trading operation level. Essentially, this entire set of actions is building a capital infrastructure that new energy asset operators can take root in for the long term. For enterprises engaged in new energy asset operation, the implementation of market-oriented capabilities such as spot power, green power trading, and ancillary services largely depends on whether the local supporting mechanisms have been fully established. Chengdu's accumulation in this area is not a temporary move, but a natural extension of a complete set of industrial collaboration strategies.

Then look at the scenario side, which is another more scarce resource. Capital can flow, but scenarios are difficult to replicate. The abundant industrial and commercial rooftop resources and sufficient space for urban-rural microgrid construction, as well as the real application scenarios down to streets and factories, are the soil for new energy projects to take root and grow. The willingness to truly open these scenarios, attract industrial entities and capital aggregation with real industrial needs, and achieve resource complementarity and business linkage, carries more weight for new energy asset operators than capital itself.

The logic behind Chengdu taking regions like Pengzhou as the core demonstration fulcrum of the Southwest market is not difficult to understand. The rich local application scenarios and solid industrial foundation provide a natural test field for the implementation of innovative models such as integrated solar-storage systems and urban microgrids. From a broader perspective, Chengdu has accumulated considerable mature industrial collaboration experience and cultivated the willingness to proactively open scenarios in recent years while promoting the construction of a national carbon peak pilot city and building a full-domain collaborative new power system. This accumulation cannot be achieved overnight, but is the result of the city's long-term investment and continuous deep cultivation in the green energy sector.

A city's willingness to open real scenarios, build industrial fund clusters, and upgrade smart energy regulation platforms, when combined, will make new energy asset management enterprises that have achieved breakthroughs in asset securitization willing to focus their regional deep cultivation efforts here. For investors focusing on regional industrial layout, the supporting capacity and openness demonstrated by Chengdu itself is a signal worthy of attention, indicating that the city is gradually evolving from a policy lowland in the new energy track to a destination that both industry and capital are willing to actively approach.

New Energy Assets Are Opening a New Door

Looking beyond this single cooperation in Chengdu and viewing the entire industry landscape, a new noteworthy trend is taking shape.

For a long time, people's impression of new energy assets has been heavy assets and slow returns. After the power station is built, funds are locked in and cannot be realized in the short term, which is one of the reasons why many investors were reluctant to enter this field in the past. However, the emergence of tools such as REITs is gradually changing this logic. Assets are not a process that ends after construction, but a starting point for securitization, circulation, and exit. If this channel is opened, the willingness to allocate new energy assets for the long term will greatly increase, because people will no longer see it as just a fixed asset that needs to be held for a long time, but a series of financial products with clear exit mechanisms and flexible adjustment capabilities.

From the issuance of the first institutional REITs for distributed clean energy assets to the completion of additional issuance, the entire process shows that the market's acceptance of new energy asset securitization is rising rapidly. With the increasing application of artificial intelligence in power trading and digital asset operation, the operational efficiency and transparency of new energy assets will be greatly improved. This will directly lead to a situation where investors who previously held a wait-and-see attitude towards the industry will reconsider their entry timing.

At the same time, the gradual maturity of segmented scenarios such as integrated solar-storage-charging systems and urban-rural microgrids has opened up more value realization channels for new energy assets. In the past, the value of new energy assets was mainly realized through power sales, but now, in addition to power sales, new value realization methods such as energy storage peak regulation, green power trading, ancillary services, and asset securitization are superimposed, expanding the imagination space of the entire assets. Concepts such as charging microgrids, hub microgrids, and park microgrids are still relatively unfamiliar, but they have begun large-scale implementation on the basis of demonstration projects and have become an indispensable part of the new energy asset operation chain.

The new energy asset management industry is undergoing an identity transformation. In the past, it was more of an engineering and operation-oriented industry, but now it is deeply integrated with the capital market, gradually forming a new track with both industrial and financial attributes. This transformation has only just begun. In the future, more cities will provide scenarios and resources, more capital will re-evaluate the value of this track, and more innovative tools like REITs will emerge to help new energy assets find their unique circulation paths.

This article is from the WeChat official account "Rongzhong Finance", author: Lü Jingzhi, published by 36Kr with authorization.