As an industry leader with an annual revenue of CNY120 billion, Digital China generates over CNY10 billion in business for Huawei each year, with nearly CNY2 billion of that directed to Huawei Digital Power.
Achieving a scale of this magnitude is never a smooth journey but rather one that requires ten years of collective effort. Throughout this cooperation, the two companies have continued to build new areas for collaboration and business models. As they have scaled up, they have also contributed to innovation and development in the green energy industry.
Partnership through ups and downs
In 2010, Digital China started working with Huawei on the data communication product line. In 2013, the company became an important partner in Huawei Digital Power's UPS business. Then, in 2014, they began to cooperate in the PV business. Since then, their cooperation has been quickly growing, covering all of Huawei's lines of business.
According to Wang Weili, General Manager of the Digital Power BU, Digital China Cloud Business Group, Digital China has always been very optimistic about renewable energy. However, they lacked the appropriate opportunities to enter the market. Back when Huawei launched its inverters, Digital China was looking for cooperation pathways. That's why they soon signed a cooperation agreement on PV products.
Mr. Wang was also confident in Huawei's insights into the PV inverter market. "At first, Huawei was just a new player in the PV market with a small market share. However, things changed after Huawei discovered the potential of distributed inverters. They then stopped selling central inverters and started promoting the emerging string inverters. This has proven to be a great success, as Huawei is now a market leader."
It did not take long for Digital China's Huawei Digital Power business to enter a growth phase. In 2018, Digital China collaborated in-depth with Huawei. However, with market and policy changes, as well as a decrease in PV projects, capital, and feed-in tariff, many companies, including Digital China, saw their business scale shrink.
"Huawei supported us even when we were facing difficulties like this. They helped us overcome one challenge after another and put our business back on track. Troubled times bear witness to our friendship," Mr. Wang said.
Customer collaboration for technological innovation
After 2021, China's carbon peak and carbon neutrality goals have brought the PV industry back into the spotlight. The scope and scale of cooperation between Digital China and Huawei Digital Power have expanded again, reaching an annual revenue of nearly CNY2 billion.
In 2022 and 2023, Huawei Digital Power launched new energy storage system (ESS) products and the liquid-cooled ultra-fast charging solution. Digital China followed suit and has become an authorized partner (VAP or Diamond Sales Partner) for Huawei Digital Power's PV, energy storage, and charging businesses.
Mr. Wang believes that, apart from technological advantages, excellent product quality is at the core of Huawei Digital Power's value that wins customers' trust. PV projects are long-term, so products need to work properly for 10 or even 20 years.
In this partnership, Huawei Digital Power manages R&D and production, while Digital China focuses on sales and service support. They integrate products and services to offer customers comprehensive digital power solutions.
China General Nuclear Power Group (CGN) adopted Huawei's Smart String Grid-Forming ESS Solution provided by Digital China in its energy storage project (100 MW/200 MWh) in Gong'an, Hubei. The energy storage plant has set a benchmark in terms of improving regional power grid architectures and increasing the operational flexibility of power grids.
Project construction began on September 25, 2022, and the procurement contract was signed in late October. However, the project needed to be fully grid-tied by the end of 2022. Given such a tight schedule, Huawei significantly supported Digital China, ensuring timely and high-quality delivery.
As CGN's first demonstration project in the energy storage field, the plant features higher discharge capacity, higher ROI, simpler O&M, and more reliable operations. It provided a testing platform for the Group to explore the business and operational models, as well as a technical roadmap for shared energy storage. The project has won multiple innovation awards.
Transition to the customer-facing business model
For Digital China, the cooperation with Huawei Digital Power goes far beyond revenue and brings even more value.
Digital China has a strong understanding of digital transformation and keen insight into customer needs. It began its business transition early and introduced the innovative "data cloud integration" strategy. The goal is to establish itself as a leading partner of digital transformation.
Along its transition, Digital China seizes opportunities in emerging technologies and focuses on getting closer to end users. As a rapidly emerging field, digital power is becoming a customer-facing business.
Mr. Wang said that Digital China's cooperation with Huawei was initially only for distribution. Digital China sold Huawei's products to downstream partners rather than end customers, while the digital power business was designed mainly for end customers, most of which were key accounts such as state-owned energy enterprises.
Once again, Huawei Digital Power played a key role in helping Digital China consolidate its capabilities to directly serve customers. This included developing its capabilities in electrical engineering, systematic delivery, and project operations. These skills allow Digital China to deliver projects to key accounts and service providers.
"It has changed our perception of traditional distribution channels and helped us build service capabilities for end customers. To this day, the Digital Power BU of the Digital China Cloud Business Group is a pioneer in customer awareness among our departments," Mr. Wang said.
Now, as a four-star certified service provider of Huawei Digital Power, Digital China can provide customers with high-quality services such as project implementation and after-sales support. In addition, the company can receive resources such as technical training, technical support, and marketing from Huawei to further improve its capabilities.
A future of possibilities
As the renewable energy industry continues to develop rapidly, it also tends to become more branded. According to Mr. Wang, less than 5% of the hundreds of inverter manufacturers in China have been able to survive. The importance of working with market leaders with strong innovation capabilities is evident.
He believes the industry will continue to grow rapidly for at least another decade, especially in the emerging energy storage and charging businesses. This is driven by both industry policies and trends.
In 2024, China's Report on the Work of the Government first mentioned "developing new energy storage." Now, new energy storage is an essential technology and infrastructure for new power systems. It can promote the green transformation of the energy mix, helping achieve carbon peak and carbon neutrality goals.
At the same time, the automotive industry is going electric and requires more charging capacity. Huawei's innovative liquid-cooled ultra-fast charging solution is celebrated by electric vehicle (EV) owners. As China expands its EV sales overseas, the demand for ultra-fast charging outside of China is expected to grow exponentially.
Going global has become one of Digital China's strategic priorities. The company has begun to deploy its Digital Power business overseas, which is expected to be an important growth engine in the future.
The rise of the renewable energy market is also fostering new business forms in the energy industry. Digital China is actively exploring new business models for operations and services and hopes to further cooperate with Huawei Digital Power to build a better future.
