Thereport “Assessment of Green Innovation Ability of Listed Companies--Taking NewEnergy Storage Technologies as an Example” was officially released on June 28,2022. This report was jointly completed by Bluetech Clean Air Alliance (BCAA)and Innovation Centre for Clean-air Solutions, and was strongly supported bythe World Wide Fund For Nature (WWF) BeijingRepresentative Office and Greentech Financing Platform (GFP). The report pressconference was held online, and industry experts, investment institutions andmedia representatives were invited to witness it.
Thisreport takes the patent database information of more than 120 countries worldwideas the basis for data analysis, combines patent information with industry andtechnical analysis, and forms a set of cross-border integrated green innovationanalysis methods. This report provides investors in the field of energy storagewith information and tools for enterprise scientific and technologicalinnovation analysis from the perspective of combining patent and industry, whichcan assist investors in making decisions. This report analyzes the overallindustrial innovation in new energy storage technology fields such aslithium-ion batteries, liquid flow batteries, sodium sulfur batteries,compressed air energy storage, etc. from the dimensions of the total number of innovativeapplications, the number of applications from various countries, and majorinstitutions. In addition, this report also selects typically listed andunlisted technology companies as examples of various new energy storagetechnology fields to analyze green innovation. The dimensions of the analysisinclude the overview of innovation assets, the layout of time, the inventorteam, international layout, and the key technical research direction.
Atthe press conference, Xiaohua Jia, Director of the Energy TransformationProject of the World Wide Fund For Nature (WWF) BeijingRepresentative Office, and Lijian Zhao, Head of Greentech FinancingPlatform and President of Carbon Trust China, delivered speeches. Hongxing(Tonny)Xie, Director of BCAA, systematically introduced the report, and severalexperts commented on the content.
Hongxing(Tonny)Xie , Director of BCAA, said when introducing the report: " In terms ofnew energy storage technologies, China's innovation enthusiasm is ahead of othercountries and is the most active in the world. Among the new energy storagefields in the report, the total number of patent applications from Chinese applicantsranks first from 2000 to 2020, accounting for 56% in supercapacitors field and38% in sodium sulfur batteries field worldwide. Besides China, the UnitedStates, Japan, South Korea and Germany also have relatively large applicationsin the field of new energy storage. Research also found that among listedcompanies in the field of energy storage, CATL and BYD are outstanding in theinternational patent layout, especially for CATL, the proportion of patentapplications in overseas layout has exceeded 40%. In terms of continuousinnovation, BYD is very eye-catching. BYD maintained a relatively stable andhigh number of patent applications since 2005.”
Hongxing(Tonny)Xie also mentioned that: “This report also found that there are only a fewlisted companies involved in the fields of sodium sulfur batteries, liquid flowbatteries, and supercapacitors, because they are still in the early stage ofthe market, and no listed companies with high correlation are found in thecompressed air field. However, some non-listed companies with excellentperformance have been found in these technical directions. Taking Dalian RongkePower as an example, the enterprise is a technology company with shares ofDalian Institute of Chemical physics. Dalian Rongke Power has distributed over200 patents in liquid flow batteries field. The technical direction of thelayout covers many key technical points of the development of liquid flowbatteries, and some core patents have been distributed in 7 countries outsideChina in the form of PCT. In addition, many scientific research institutionshave outstanding performance and a high proportion of innovation in thesetechnical directions. This means that the effective transformation ofscientific research achievements in these fields will greatly impact theindustry's future development. "
Inthe expert comment part, Xiaohua Jia, Director of the Energy TransformationProject of the World Wide Fund For Nature (WWF) Beijing Representative Office,said, “science and technology are the primary productive forces. Under thecurrent complex international and domestic situation, Chinese enterprises(especially listed enterprises) face crises and challenges simultaneously. Theproposal of the carbon peaking and carbon neutrality goal will surely leadChina's all-round low-carbon revolution in energy, industry, transportation,construction and other fields. The research and application of innovative greentechnology in these fields will become the key to achieve the goal. For thedevelopment of electricity sector of new energy, when the power grid consumesrenewable energy power, it needs to configure an energy storage system on thegeneration side for peak shaving to ensure the security and stability of thepower grid. Therefore, the development of energy storage technology willdirectly affect the process of the proportion of renewable energy consumed bythe power grid.”
LijianZhao, Head of Greentech Financing Platform and President of Carbon Trust China,said: “The case analysis of the report not only covers listed companies, butalso includes the analysis of scientific and technological innovation andpatents of non-listed companies. This is very helpful for VC and PE investmentin the primary market in the energy storage field, and can be used as one ofthe reference factors for them to make investment decisions. At the same time,we can also see that for large listed companies such as CATL and BYD, theirstrong economic strength is an important driving factor for the internationallayout. However, for small and medium-sized enterprises that pay attention toinnovation, there is still a lot of work to help them better carry outinternational patent layout, including awareness improvement, and even policysupport.”
YongchongChen, Researcher at Institute of Electrical Engineering Chinese Academy ofSciences, proposed: " This report analyzes the innovation ability ofenterprises from the perspective of patents, which is a very good benchmark. Whilefor the analysis in the future, if the reportcould expand more analysis factors including the connotation of subdivisiontechnology based on firmly grasping patents as the core, it will also providemore help to practitioners who pay attention to the subdivision technology. Thereport found that among the technology patents of new energy storage in China,the applicants are mainly universities and research institutes, whileenterprises are the majority applicants in other countries. How to guide enterprisesto realize the transformation of these technological achievements and torealize the industrialization of these new technologies is very important."
RongtaoSun, Managing Director of Sinopec Capital, said: " From the perspective ofthe investment industry, I think the report is very valuable, in terms of theanalysis of new energy storage technologies of both listed companies and somenon-listed companies. First, the method of using patents to analyze theinnovation ability and the investment value of companies is used by manyoverseas institutions, but it is not common for domestic investmentinstitutions. This is also because understanding patents and legal language isdifficult for practitioners in the investment industry. Therefore, this reportis very valuable in the use of the method. In addition, the horizontal analysisbased on patents in the report has great guiding significance and value, it canhelp practitioners and investors in the industry to obtain technicalinformation of the industry and enterprises, and understand the technicalroute, technical layout, development direction, etc. of relevant enterprises."
Yuguang Zhou, DeputySecretary General of BCAA, emphasized in the summary of the meeting: "This report realizes the quantitative evaluation of the enterprise's technologyassets and core patent value. It can support investors in carrying out theinvestment evaluation of technology projects and the selection of investmenttargets. The report hopes to effectively promote investors' attention andparticipation in green technology investment by clearly showing Chineseenterprises' innovation and development potentialin new energy storagetechnologies. In the future, BCAA will choose other carbon neutral areas basedon this research, carry out green innovation analysis of industries andenterprises, and plan to cooperate with investment institutions to furtherdeepen and refine the analysis in combination with customized needs. "
