Development Analysis of Four Mainstream Fields of New Energy Lighting in 2024 (2)

Photovoltaic lighting

Photovoltaic lighting can be said to be an upgraded version of solar lighting in terms of functional characteristics. This type of lighting fixture provides energy for itself by converting solar energy into electrical energy. Its core device is a solar panel, which can convert sunlight into electrical energy, store it in the battery, and then provide illumination through LED light sources with light control devices.

Compared with solar lighting fixtures that require secondary energy conversion, photovoltaic lighting fixtures only require one-time energy conversion. Therefore, they carry fewer equipment, have lower manufacturing costs, and are therefore cheaper in price, making them more advantageous in application popularization. Of particular concern is the reduction in energy conversion processes, which makes photovoltaic lighting fixtures more efficient than solar lighting fixtures.

Under such technological advantages, according to authoritative institution analysis data, as of the first half of 2021, the cumulative installed capacity of photovoltaic lighting products in China has reached 27 million kilowatts. It is expected that by 2025, the scale of China's photovoltaic lighting market is expected to exceed 6.985 billion yuan, thereby achieving accelerated breakthrough development in this industry field. It is worth noting that with such market growth, China has also become the world's largest producer of photovoltaic lighting fixtures, accounting for over 60% of the global market share.

Despite its outstanding advantages and promising market prospects, the drawbacks of photovoltaic lighting applications are also evident, with weather and light being the main influencing factors. Environments such as cloudy and rainy weather and nighttime not only fail to generate sufficient electricity, making it difficult to provide sufficient lighting energy for lighting sources, but also affecting the output efficiency of photovoltaic panels, resulting in low stability of the entire photovoltaic power generation system and shortening the service life of lighting sources.

Therefore, photovoltaic lighting fixtures need to be equipped with more energy conversion equipment in order to fill the dark environment usage defects of photovoltaic equipment on the lamp body and meet the application needs of the growing market size.

Wind solar complementary lighting

At a time when the lighting industry is confused about the prospects of new energy lighting due to unfavorable factors such as power generation time, light intensity, and weather conditions in solar and photovoltaic lighting, the wind solar complementary lighting device combined with wind turbines and solar equipment solves the limitations of electric energy application in new energy lighting fixtures that rely solely on light energy conversion.

The wind solar complementary lighting system is mainly composed of wind turbines, solar cell arrays, intelligent controllers, battery packs, multifunctional inverters, cables, and support and auxiliary components, forming a power generation and lighting supply system. At night and on cloudy and rainy days when there is no sunlight, wind power is used to generate electricity, while on sunny days, solar power is used to generate electricity. Both of them work together in the presence of both wind and sun, achieving all-weather power generation. This is more economical, scientific, and practical than solar and photovoltaic lighting systems.

From the perspective of application form, street lights are still the mainstream product of wind solar complementary lighting. According to authoritative analysis reports, the market size of China's wind solar complementary street light industry has reached 12.5 billion yuan in 2019.

Continuing the derivative application of solar lighting, wind solar complementary lighting systems are widely used as lighting fixtures in urban and rural roads, highways, water conservancy embankments, bridges, islands, parks, industrial areas, urban squares, residential areas, and other places. They are suitable for street lights, courtyard lights, large areas without electricity, villa living electricity, and home backup power. They can provide lighting electricity for areas where the power grid is difficult to extend and other areas with inconvenient electricity consumption.

Taking wind and solar complementary street lights as an example, according to the "Market Research and Investment Forecast Analysis Report on China's Wind and Solar Complementary Street Light Industry" released by Forward Industry Research Institute in 2021, the total number of urban and rural street lights in China was about 200 million at that time, and it was growing at a rate of 20% (40 million per year) per year. If these 200 million 400 watt or 250 watt high-pressure sodium lamps were all replaced with 150 watt or 100 watt wind and solar complementary LED street lights, and each street light worked 12 hours a day, it would save 150 billion kilowatt hours of electricity within a year, indicating the low-carbon and energy-saving creativity of this type of new energy lighting fixtures.

As the core component of wind solar complementary lighting fixtures, the market size of domestic wind solar complementary controllers has gradually expanded in recent years in the context of the "dual carbon" strategy in the emerging new energy industry. According to an industry report by Zhiyanzhan, as of the end of 2020, the overall size of the national wind solar complementary controller market has climbed to a level of approximately RMB 12.09 billion, achieving a strong year-on-year growth of 12.78% compared to the previous year. It is expected that its market size will further expand to RMB 17.62 billion by 2025. From this perspective, the trend of new energy transformation of lighting equipment combined with the market demand for wind solar complementary controllers makes the future application prospects of wind solar complementary lighting products infinitely broad.

Even though wind solar complementary lighting has become an advanced form of off grid lighting derived from solar lighting, it still faces disadvantages such as high maintenance costs for lamps, high noise from wind energy collection equipment, and incomplete maturity of software and hardware technology. In view of this, most lighting enterprises in this sub field in China are small and medium-sized enterprises, and few well-known lighting enterprises have ventured deeply into it.

More thought-provoking is that the application field of wind solar complementary lighting is currently limited to outdoor areas. How to achieve the implementation of this new energy lighting technology in the indoor field is an important direction for future lighting R&D workers to tackle technical challenges, and it is also a key node for whether this lighting sub field can drive the layout boom of strong enterprises in the future.