Author丨Qiu Xiaofen, Editor丨Su Jianxun
36氪 was informed that “Tongwei New Energy” completed the angel round of financing. The owner is Xianfeng Changqing. The funds are mainly used for product research and development, team and production line construction. The company has now started its Pre-A round of financing.
“Tongwei New Energy” was established in 2020 and is positioned as a zero-carbon solid oxide fuel cell manufacturer. The main products provided are distributed zero-carbon power plants.
The core principle of solid oxide fuel cells (hereinafter referred to as “SOFC”) is to directly convert the chemical energy of energy (such as methanol, natural gas, coal gas, hydrogen, etc.) into electrical energy.
Dr. Shao Xin, the founder of “Tongwei New Energy”, told 36Kr that solid oxide batteries take a long time to start due to the reaction temperature of 600-750℃, so they are not suitable for the traffic scene of start-stop, and are more suitable for 24 Hourly low-carbon electricity consumption scenarios, such as data centers, factories, ports, office buildings, hospitals, remote islands, etc. Therefore, the positioning of Tongwei New Energy is to provide 24-hour low-carbon electricity consumption.
The commercialization of SOFC in the European and American markets has been verified. The leading company is Bloom Energy. This company has been listed as early as 2018 and has reached cooperation with major brands such as Apple, Google and IKEA. 25 of the world’s top 100 are its customers. Received $4.5 billion in orders from SK in 2021.
In Japan, solid-state fuel cells have been widely used in households, using the existing natural gas pipeline network to realize combined heat and power supply. Currently, more than 300,000 households have been deployed. Compared with foreign countries, the current domestic SOFC is moving from the research and development stage to the commercial stage.
Shao Xin said that at present, the sale and transfer of SOFC technologies and products in the United States and Japan are prohibited in China, and the country needs to develop its own SOFC technology. Due to the wider coverage of the domestic power grid, before the dual-carbon goal has not fully penetrated into the industry texture, the pressure on most enterprises to use low-carbon electricity has not yet occurred. Demand begins to emerge gradually, which will drive the development of domestic SOFC.
The advantage of SOFC is that, compared with diesel engine, SOFC has no mechanical work process, and the power generation efficiency is generally 60%, while that of diesel engine is generally 30%. In addition, under the energy sources such as biogas and hydrogen energy, almost complete zero-carbon energy applications can be realized, and the requirements for fuel sources are low. Hydrogen, biogas, natural gas, synthesis gas, and coal gasification are all acceptable, but high purity is not required.
In addition, SOFC also has more advantages in terms of floor space. According to estimates, a 100-kilowatt SOFC power station only needs to occupy an area of 6-8 square meters, while a photovoltaic power station of the same power needs at least 800 square meters.
How to find out the positioning of SOFC in China? Shao Xin believes that photovoltaic + energy storage and SOFC are suitable for different scenarios and are complementary rather than mutually exclusive competition. The technical difficulty of photovoltaic + energy storage itself is very high. Photovoltaic enterprises generally pay more attention to the implementation of large-scale projects. As an important part of the domestic industrial system, it is difficult for most small and medium-sized enterprises to fully adopt photovoltaics for their low-carbon electricity needs. These enterprises The general power distribution demand is only one or two hundred kilowatts, and SOFC, which is positioned in lightweight scenarios, just makes up for this part of the market gap.
In addition, since the carbon neutrality target was issued, there have been power and production restrictions in various places last year, and the normal production of small and medium-sized enterprises has been seriously affected. SOFCs with 24-hour low-carbon power consumption characteristics have gradually become the rigid needs of these factories. , and core strategic reserves.
Shao Xin believes that the key factor limiting the commercial use of SOFC is cost. To speed up the development of the domestic SOFC industry, the key to breaking through the bottleneck is how to reduce costs – this problem has not been completely solved even by the current leading company Bloom Energy. The company’s current gross profit margin is only 20%, and it is in a state of loss all year round.
As a benchmark, “Tongwei New Energy” is currently in the research and development stage, and can basically achieve the same product functions as the aforementioned companies, but the cost is only one-fourth of that.
According to him, the method to reduce costs is mainly technological innovation. The microchannel membrane forming technology developed by the company can take into account the cost reduction while the power density is greatly increased, which is Shao Xin’s doctoral research topic. The second is to use the domestic supply chain to reduce costs. On the other hand, in practical applications, SOFC power plants will not generate excessive operation and maintenance costs. According to the company’s calculations, the project investment will generally be “returned within two years.”
In China, many energy giants have already started the reserve of SOFC technology. For example, Weichai Power spent 40 million pounds to acquire a 20% stake in British company Ceres in 2018; China General Nuclear Power Group, Shanxi Coal Group, etc. have carried out corresponding SOFC icebreakers to promote the implementation of relevant demonstration projects.
After two years of technology research and development, “Tongwei New Energy” has now entered the production line design stage. It is expected that by the second half of this year, the production line and the stack prototype will be offline, and the demonstration project will be launched in the follow-up.
As for the founding team, the founder, Dr. Shao Xin, received a doctorate and postdoctoral degree in chemical engineering from Curtin University, Australia, and invented the microchannel battery membrane technology, and won the first prize of the Western Australia Science and Technology Invention Award. The three core members of the team are all Ph.D.s in the SOFC direction. They have more than 10 years of R&D experience in the SOFC field and have worked together for 10 years before.
Regarding this investment, Xianfeng Evergreen investor Ye Zhanqi said that the third-generation fuel cell technology SOFC has distinct advantages such as high energy conversion efficiency, wide choice of fuels, and no need for precious metals, and has been adopted by a large number of leading companies such as Apple and Google overseas. The Tongwei team has been deeply involved in SOFC for more than ten years, and has a series of original technologies from the underlying electrode material, battery structure, system integration to production process, which greatly reduces the overall cost. With the support of China’s strong dual carbon policy and supply chain, it is believed that Tongwei Energy will bring this green energy technology to scale and help more and more companies around the world to become carbon neutral.
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- 2022-04-25 36氪 First Release丨Research and development of zero-carbon solid oxide fuel cells, “Tongwei New Energy” completed the angel round of financing
- 2022-04-07Jimei Power completed nearly ten million angel round financing
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