What are the differences between centralized energy storage and distributed thermal management, and what are their respective needs?

 

According to the different working objects of the temperature control system, energy storage thermal management can be divided into centralized and distributed thermal management. Centralized thermal management: A container is maintained by a thermal management system with high power, generally 40kw and above.

Distributed thermal management: conduct thermal management for multiple battery cabinets in the container respectively, emphasizing fine control of temperature. Currently, the upgrade transition is mainly from 2.5-4kw units to 6-8kw units.

In the procurement of energy storage thermal management systems, overseas countries currently place more emphasis on full-cycle LCoS, while domestic companies place more emphasis on bidding prices.

From a price point of view, distributed thermal management has a higher ex-factory price than centralized thermal management, but distributed thermal management is more refined and the overall efficiency is higher. Therefore, LCoS (life cycle cost/accumulated electric energy transmitted) is actually lower. At present, overseas markets place more emphasis on the full life cycle cost, while the domestic market places more emphasis on the bidding price of the solution.

 

What will thermal management look like in the future?

Cold plate liquid cooling is the most common indirect contact liquid cooling technology, and immersion liquid cooling is the most common direct contact liquid cooling technology. There are many solutions for liquid cooling. The mainstream and high-efficiency cooling solutions mainly include:

1) Immersion liquid cooling
2) Spray cooling
3) Cold plate liquid cooling
Among them, immersion cooling has the best effect, including single-phase/phase change cooling. It has higher requirements on the thermophysical properties, stability, material compatibility, insulation and other characteristics of the coolant, and the average price is higher.
Cold plate liquid cooling is currently the most mature liquid cooling solution. It is relatively simple to install, has low modification costs, has good material compatibility, has the fastest development speed, and has an average price lower than the immersion type.

 

Possible future development trends of thermal management:
1) Air cooling will be replaced,
2) Cold plate type develops to immersed type,
3) Thermal management is external.
With the continuous improvement of chip computing power, battery energy density, and charging and discharging efficiency, the heat production of equipment per unit time has increased significantly, and the improvement of heat exchange efficiency of temperature control systems is the general trend of the industry.
Air cooling will gradually be replaced by liquid cooling. As the price of coolant drops, the penetration rate of immersed liquid cooling may further increase. External thermal management targeting containers may be an attempt to further reduce the cost of thermal management solutions. .

 

Taking liquid cooling as an example, what is the future gross profit margin and trend of energy storage temperature control?

 

From the current point of view, the industry is still in the stage where first-mover companies dominate. Taking Invic as a reference, the company's gross profit margin for outdoor cabinet temperature control and energy-saving equipment will reach 32.3% in 2022.

Considering that there are certain technical barriers to liquid cooling temperature control, and the energy storage market is still an oligopoly competition, we estimate that the current gross profit margin of the energy storage temperature control industry is around 30%.

Looking forward, in the short term, we expect the industry to still maintain a gross profit margin of around 30%. The design of thermal management solutions between projects of different energy storage integrators varies greatly. Energy storage temperature control products are highly customized. Energy storage temperature control companies are expected to maintain the current gross profit level in the short term.

 

In the medium to long term, we expect the industry's gross profit margin to remain around 25%. Considering that energy storage temperature control products are developing towards modularization and standardization, the industry's gross profit margin may decline slightly.

Since data centers and energy storage temperature control solutions have something in common, taking the computer room temperature control equipment as a reference, the gross profit margin of Invict's computer room temperature control equipment showed a downward trend from 2018 to 2022, and has remained at around 25% in the past three years. Therefore, We expect that the gross profit margin of energy storage temperature control will remain at a similar level under steady state.

 

 

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