The scale of new installed capacity has grown steadily, and the price of domestic wind turbines has stabilized, and the performance of wind power manufacturers in the first three quarters has picked up as a whole. According to the statistics of the 21st Century Business Herald reporter, from January to September this year, 25 A-share wind power industry chain listed companies achieved a total operating income of 195.732 billion yuan, and the total net profit attributable to shareholders of listed companies was 13.514 billion yuan. In terms of revenue, Goldwind (002202. SZ), Yunda Co., Ltd. (300772. SZ), Sany Renewable Energy (688349. SH), Dongfang Electric (600875. SH) all achieved growth. However, in terms of net profit, the performance of wind power manufacturers has been differentiated, and Mingyang Intelligent (601615. SH), Sany Renewable Energy, Dongfang Electric, Electric Wind Power (688660.SH) SH) net profit attributable to shareholders of listed companies decreased year-on-year.

It is worth mentioning that Mingyang Intelligent suffered a "double decline" in revenue and net profit, and the electric wind power has not yet gotten rid of losses during the reporting period.

Yao Yao, chief analyst of Guojin Securities, believes that the revenue of the wind power industry in the third quarter was flat year-on-year, and profits may have bottomed out. "The short-term reasons for the decline in profitability include the transfer of wind farms in the third quarter, as well as the decline in the proportion of overseas revenue of some enterprises, the adjustment of income structure, and the stabilization of the price of downstream machine enterprises, which may be the lowest point of industry profitability in a single quarter."

Image source: Xinhua News Agency

According to the ranking released by the Global Wind Energy Council (GWEC) in May this year, a total of 30 wind turbine manufacturers in the world will add new capacity in 2023, and set a new record of 120.7GW, of which Chinese wind turbine manufacturers will contribute 81.6GW. In this list, 6 Chinese wind turbine manufacturers will enter the top 10 in the world in terms of new installed capacity in 2023, and 10 will enter the top 15 in the world. Among them, Goldwind Technology, Envision Energy, Yunda Co., Ltd., and Mingyang Intelligence ranked among the top five.

However, in recent years, although the major domestic wind power manufacturers have played a triumphant song in the new installed capacity, their performance is not the same. In the first three quarters of this year, the profitability of Mingyang Intelligent and Electric Wind Power was relatively weak.

According to the financial report, in the first three quarters of this year, Mingyang Intelligent and Electric Wind Power achieved operating income of 20.237 billion yuan and 3.135 billion yuan respectively, a year-on-year decrease of 4.14% and 47.08%; The net profit attributable to shareholders of listed companies was 809 million yuan and -477 million yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 34.58% and a decrease of 26.95%.

In response to the shrinking net profit, Mingyang Intelligent said in the financial report, "It is mainly caused by the decline in wind turbine prices and the decline in the scale of offshore wind turbine delivery." The 21st Century Business Herald reporter noticed that the performance decline of Mingyang Intelligence this year has been obvious since the second quarter. Affected by the year-on-year decline in wind turbine prices, the company's revenue and net profit both declined in the second quarter compared with the same period last year. At that time, some institutions analyzed that the installed capacity of offshore wind power in the first half of 2024 was less than expected, and the proportion of the company's high-unit-price offshore wind host decreased, and the proportion of low-unit-price onshore wind host expanded, resulting in a year-on-year decline of more than 27% in the unit price of wind turbines in the first half of this year.

In the third quarter, this negative factor clearly expanded. In recent years, Mingyang Intelligent has taken the lead in offshore wind power. Among the nearly 40GW of orders in hand, the company's offshore wind power orders have gradually increased. However, compared with onshore wind turbines, the conversion of orders for high-priced offshore wind turbines will have a direct impact on the company's profits.

Electric wind power, which has also made great achievements in offshore wind power, has reduced its revenue in the first three quarters of this year, but its loss has decreased. Compared with other mainstream wind power manufacturers, the overall scale of electric wind power is slightly disadvantaged. As of the end of September this year, the company had accumulated 14.57GW of orders in hand, and most of them were new orders this year - about 7.15GW were added in the first three quarters, a year-on-year increase of 292.53%.

Due to the lack of new orders last year, the overall delivery scale of this year declined, and the price of superimposed wind turbines decreased compared with the same period last year, so the revenue of electric wind power in the first three quarters of this year declined. However, the sales scale of overseas orders and projects increased in the third quarter, as well as cost reduction control, and the company reduced losses during the reporting period.

Although the performance of some wind power companies in the third quarter was poor, from the overall performance of the industry, the profit inflection point may have come.

The performance report card of wind power giant Goldwind can be regarded as a "wind vane". In the first three quarters of this year, the company's operating income and net profit attributable to shareholders of listed companies were 35.839 billion yuan and 1.792 billion yuan respectively, an increase of 22.24% and 42.15% year-on-year respectively. However, it should be pointed out that one of the sectors that accounts for a large proportion of Goldwind's main business is wind farm operation. According to the analysis of Soochow Securities, Goldwind Technology had less wind farm transfers in the third quarter, and the power generation situation was affected by the deterioration of the wind wind compared with the second quarter, and the main source of profit in the split profit was wind farm operation and investment income of 256 million yuan (mainly for wind farm transfer), while the wind turbine performance continued to lose.

However, according to Goldwind's third-quarter performance demonstration materials, in September 2024, the average bidding price of wind turbines in the whole market will rebound to 1,475 yuan/kW; In addition, in the first three quarters of 2024, the proportion of units with a capacity greater than 6M sold by the company was 57.64%, a significant increase from 36.54% in the same period last year, and the proportion of large megawatt units with a high value per megawatt was further increased, which is expected to support the stability of the company's subsequent profitability.

In terms of revenue and net profit growth in the third quarter, Sany Renewable Energy's performance even surpassed that of Goldwind. Although the company's single-quarter net profit was not as good as Goldwind's, its net profit attributable to shareholders of listed companies was 251 million yuan, achieving positive growth both year-on-year and quarter-on-quarter. According to the analysis of Guojin Securities, the stabilization of domestic wind turbine bidding prices and the scale effect brought about by the increase in sales volume have promoted the recovery of Sany Renewable Energy's profitability. The company's performance in overseas markets is also valued by analysts.

In fact, overseas projects with high premiums have become the main direction for domestic wind power manufacturers to explore new growth points in performance. In the view of industry insiders, the increase in the proportion of overseas revenue of wind power manufacturers is expected to drive the profitability of the whole machine link to further repair.

Recently, 12 wind power manufacturers, including Goldwind Technology, Envision Energy, Mingyang Intelligence, Sany Renewable Energy, Yunda Co., Ltd., and Electric Wind Power, signed the "Self-Discipline Convention on Maintaining a Fair Competition Environment in China's Wind Power Industry" to resist malicious "price wars". Data show that in the first three quarters of this year, the average bidding price of domestic wind turbines remained at the level of 1300-1400 yuan/kW. If the follow-up wind turbine price can stabilize and recover, the overall profitability of the industry is expected to usher in a real turning point.