Wind power: Technology, industry and industrial chain

2. Blades

Wind turbine blades are the core components of wind turbines, and the blades account for the highest proportion of wind turbine costs, reaching 24%.

The raw material cost of the blade accounts for 80% of the cost of the blade, so the production cost is greatly affected by the price of raw materials, and the gross profit rate of the industry fluctuates greatly, basically maintaining between 10% and 30%.

The concentration of the blade industry is more dispersed, and the CR3 of the industry is 34%, and the competition is more fierce. In addition to traditional blade manufacturers, some OMs such as Mingyang Intelligent, Sany heavy energy have established their own blade factories, while other parts are also cut into the blade link, such as tower drum manufacturers Tianshun wind Energy, simple blade manufacturers are not high barriers.

3. Gear box

The gearbox is second only to the blade in the cost of the wind turbine, and the variable speed device is realized through the combination of large and small gears.

Because the speed of the wind wheel is very low, it is usually necessary to rely on the gearbox to increase the speed, but the failure rate is high, if the quality problem of the fan gearbox occurs, the replacement and maintenance involve hoisting and transportation, which is a huge project and high cost, and the replacement and maintenance cost is even higher than the value of the gearbox itself. The fan has three technical routes, among which the gearbox is the core component of the double-fed fan, and the direct drive fan does not use the gearbox, and the failure rate is lower.

The wind power gearbox industry has a high concentration, and the three major gearbox suppliers, Nangao Gear (China high-speed transmission), ZF and Yongnengjie, have accounted for nearly 70% of the global gearbox market share.

Although the gearbox industry concentration is high, but the professional gear manufacturers in the industry chain discourse power is not strong, because the performance of the gearbox quality is very important for the fan, the whole machine factory tends to independently develop the structure of the gearbox, and then external gear, bearings and other accessories for independent assembly, the industry market share of the first China high-speed transmission (Nangao tooth) gross profit margin is only 15.8%, The lowest among wind power components.

4. Spindle

The wind power spindle is used in the wind power machine to connect the hub of the wind blade and the gearbox, and transfer the kinetic energy generated by blade rotation to the gearbox. The service life of the wind power spindle is about 20 years, the replacement cost is high and the replacement is difficult, and the cost of the wind power spindle is relatively low in the cost of the fan, so the wind power machine manufacturers are very strict in their quality requirements, and the price sensitivity of their products is much lower than that of other wind power parts with higher costs.

The wind power spindle realized localization earlier in the fan parts, and the industry formed a duopoly competition pattern. Domestic wind power spindle industry duopoly enterprises are Jinlei Shares and Tongyu Heavy Industry, in 2021, the two together accounted for more than 50% of the global wind power spindle market share, in wind power parts of the spindle of the highest degree of localization.

Wind power spindle production process is complex, the need for manual operation of more processes, can not be fully automated production, which makes the domestic wind power spindle manufacturers have more advantages in labor costs, export hope is greater than other parts.

The stable duopoly competition pattern of the main axis of wind power, coupled with the technical barriers of the production process, makes its profitability in the industrial chain at the leading level.

5. Bearing

Bearings are an important precision parts in modern machinery and equipment, which can be divided into wind power bearings, automobile bearings, construction machinery bearings, shield bearings and other categories according to the different downstream application fields. The bearing of the fan is mainly used to support the rotation of the fan impeller, reduce the friction coefficient during the rotation process, and ensure the rotation accuracy and smoothness.

China's bearing industry is large but not strong, domestic high-end bearing products mainly rely on the import market, and export bearings are mostly low-end products. In 2020, the industries with the highest proportion of bearing applications in China are automobiles, household appliances, motors and wind power, accounting for 37.4%, 12.4%, 10.6%, 5.8%, respectively, and the application proportion of wind power industry is relatively low.

Wind power bearing is the lowest degree of localization of wind power components, bearing market is highly monopolized by overseas manufacturers, Germany Schaeffler, Sweden SKF, Japan NTN, Japan KOYO, the United States Timken these five bearing groups accounted for 83% of the global market share, domestic enterprises market share of less than 10%. China's wind power bearing industry leading tile shaft, shaft are state-owned enterprises, private enterprises on behalf of the new strong union to take the lead in 3MW spindle bearing import replacement, at present, the company is developing 5MW offshore wind turbine main bearings, 6MW offshore wind turbine propeller and yaw bearings, is expected to take the lead in domestic replacement.