The rare earth permanent magnet motor industry will usher in spring

The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology and the State Administration for Market Regulation have released a plan to improve motor energy efficiency (2021 to 2023), according to a report on the Ministry's website on Tuesday. The plan calls for accelerating the promotion and application of energy-efficient motors, including upgrading stock motors to save energy and speeding up the elimination of outdated and inefficient motors that do not meet current national energy efficiency standards. In addition, the plan emphasizes the use of more energy-efficient motors.

This plan is formulated in order to further strengthen the energy-saving management of key energy-using equipment, accelerate the popularization and application of high-efficiency energy-saving motors, continuously improve the efficiency of energy and resource utilization, promote the development of green and high-quality industries, and help realize carbon neutrality.

The plan sets major targets: By 2023, the annual output of energy-efficient motors will reach 170 million kilowatts, accounting for more than 20 percent of the total in use, achieving annual electricity savings of 49 billion kilowatt-hours, equivalent to saving 15 million tons of standard coal and 28 million tons of carbon dioxide. Promote the application of a number of key core materials, components and process equipment, form a number of advantageous manufacturing backbone enterprises, and promote the high-quality development of the motor industry.

Among them, in order to speed up the application of energy-efficient motors, the plan said, inventory motor energy-saving transformation. Key industries such as iron and steel, non-ferrous metals, petrochemicals, chemicals, building materials and textiles are encouraged to carry out energy-saving diagnosis of energy-using equipment, and assess the potential for spreading and applying advanced energy-saving technologies and equipment based on the level of energy conservation and the state of operation and maintenance. We will guide enterprises to upgrade electric machines and other key energy-using equipment, give priority to developing high-efficiency and energy-saving electric machines, and speed up the elimination of outdated and inefficient electric machines that do not meet current national energy efficiency standards. Enterprises are encouraged to carry out energy-saving renovation and operation control optimization for low-efficiency motor systems such as fans, pumps and compressors.

In addition, more efforts will be made to use energy-efficient motors, the plan said. By subdividing load characteristics and different operating conditions, motors with an energy efficiency rating of class 2 and above are encouraged to be used in general-purpose equipment such as fans, pumps, compressors and machine tools. For variable load operation, improve 2 levels of energy efficiency and above frequency conversion speed regulating permanent magnet motor. Transmission and coupling transmission systems encourage the use of low speed direct drive and high speed direct drive permanent magnet motors. Great efforts have been made to develop structural integration design technologies and products for motors and load equipment such as permanent magnet external rotor electric roller and integrated screw compressor.

Rare earth permanent magnet motor industry has great development space

According to the plan, enterprises will be guided to upgrade key energy-using equipment such as electric motors, prioritize high-efficiency and energy-saving motors, and speed up the elimination of outdated and inefficient motors that do not meet current national energy efficiency standards. Increase the application of high efficiency and energy saving motor. For fans, pumps, compressors, machine tools and other general-purpose equipment, the use of motors with a level 2 or higher energy efficiency is encouraged. For variable load operation, improve 2 levels of energy efficiency and above frequency conversion speed regulating permanent magnet motor. Transmission and coupling transmission systems encourage the use of low speed direct drive and high speed direct drive permanent magnet motors. Great efforts have been made to develop structural integration design technologies and products for motors and load equipment such as permanent magnet external rotor electric roller and integrated screw compressor.

Soochow Securities research team pointed out that the traditional motor is gradually replaced by rare earth permanent magnet motor, which has important economic significance. At present, the proportion of the special motor in our country is relatively low, only 20%. The proportion of rare earth permanent magnet is also low in the special motor. Assuming that the proportion of rare earth permanent magnet motors is 3% in 2020, the permeability of new rare earth permanent magnet motors is expected to increase to 25% in 2025.

In addition, fan installation is expected to increase. According to the Wind Power Partnership Action Plan, up to 50GW of wind power capacity has been built in rural areas in the 14th five-year plan, which is expected to start operating by the end of the year. Due to the end of onshore wind power and a sharp rise in raw material costs, the Suwu Securities research team is expected to continue to rise in the 2022 industry boom, with accelerated adoption of fan megawatt models and continued growth in catalytic demand. As a result of policy support under the two-carbon target and affordable Internet access through a massive reduction in fan costs, the number of new fans installed will reach 82GW in 2025, with a compound annual growth rate of 20% between 2021 and 2025. Due to the high energy efficiency of rare earth permanent magnet motors, the permeability of direct drive permanent magnet motors in fans is expected to increase from 30% in 2020 to 50% in 2025.

Four obstacles in the energy-saving equipment industry

At present, the concentration of energy saving equipment industry is not high, there are many small and medium-sized enterprises, uneven quality, disorderly competition phenomenon is common, and the existence of invalid products increase the cost of trial and error of customers, so that the strength of enterprises can not play. In addition, traditional fan and pump manufacturers are gradually increasing their investment in technology research and development, and their products are changing from common equipment to high-efficiency energy-saving equipment. The entry of traditional enterprises with strong financial strength and technical strength will also have a certain impact on the market layout and share of the industry, and will further intensify the degree of competition in the industry.

(1) Technical barriers

Energy-saving equipment in the high efficiency energy-saving centrifugal fan and water pump, energy-saving combustion products and other energy-saving equipment requirements for strength, accuracy, operation efficiency and reliability. The technology involves the intersection of aerodynamics, fluid mechanics, principles of fluid mechanics, mechanics of materials, combustion science, thermodynamics, heat transfer, computer-aided design and manufacturing, noise science, and other disciplines. According to different needs, different working conditions, special environment, specific industry standards, continuous testing and debugging, to produce energy saving equipment to meet the personalized needs of customers. As a result, new entrants to the industry face higher technical barriers.

(2) Talent barrier

The design, production and testing of energy-saving equipment products, such as high-efficiency energy-saving centrifugal fans, high-efficiency energy-saving centrifugal pumps and energy-saving combustion products, involves multiple disciplines, requires the cooperation of professionals in multiple fields, and requires higher professional background, design experience and practical experience of personnel. At present, in China's fluid machinery industry, there are few talents with rich experience in research and development, design and technical support, and it takes a certain amount of time to train an excellent technical worker. Similarly, the shortage of talents and experts with technical experience in relevant industries is also a bottleneck restricting the development of this industry. Therefore, for new entrants, technical strength and human resources become barriers to entry.

(3) Capital barriers

The production process of energy saving equipment involves many production processes and requires a variety of machines and equipment. Enterprises need to invest a lot of money to update and maintain production equipment in order to keep the normal production and upgrade of products. Secondly, some energy conservation renovation projects adopt the contract energy management mode, which requires pre-payment of funds, resulting in long-term occupation of funds. In addition, investment in new product research and development also requires a large amount of money. Advanced equipment and facilities as well as plant construction also require capital-intensive investment. In order to meet the needs of market and enterprise development, enterprises need to continue to invest in expanding the scale of production. Therefore, new enterprises need certain capital strength and multi-channel financing to carry out large-scale investment and financing construction and production, thus constituting capital barriers.

(4) Brand barrier

Early entrants to the energy-saving equipment industry have established a good reputation among downstream customers of their products and have formed a certain first-mover advantage. Secondly, fans, water pumps and other energy-saving equipment have high requirements for safety, reliability and stability. As a result, customers tend to buy from businesses with a good industry brand and market reputation. Downstream customers put forward strict requirements on suppliers' technology research and development, production process, quality management, working environment and other aspects in the approval process. Only with rich project experience and mature technology, excellent energy-saving equipment manufacturing enterprises can enter the list of qualified suppliers of large industrial enterprises, and it is possible to obtain orders of complete sets of equipment for large production line projects. At present, many mature brands occupy a certain market share in China, and new enterprises will face certain brand barriers.