Everbright Securities released a research report stating that from an application scenario perspective, based on the requirements of green power direct connection for load scale, stability, and source-load matching, the firm is bullish on directions such as computing-power coordination and green power-to-hydrogen-ammonia-methanol. Under computing-power coordination, the main participation methods for power operators are: 1) directly supplying green power to data centers, and 2) investing in computing-power projects. Green power-to-hydrogen-ammonia-methanol is expected to form an application model of coordinated development between new energy development and new green loads. On the operations and services side, as projects extend from construction to long-term operation, the importance of source-load resource integration, power trading, and comprehensive energy management capabilities is expected to increase. The main viewpoints of Everbright Securities (ASX: 06178) are as follows:
Green power direct connection has a foundation for energy cost reduction, but the economics do not come from simply lowering electricity energy costs—they mainly come from grid-side fee optimization. Green power direct connection directly connects new energy sources with the load side, reducing part of the electricity drawn from the grid, and lowers transmission and distribution fees, system operation fees, and line loss fees through changes in transmission and distribution fee billing methods and access capacity optimization. Therefore, its core value lies in the comprehensive electricity cost optimization brought by direct source-load matching. Based on parameter calculations for the Shandong Aiko project, under a baseline scenario of 150MW wind power, 26MW solar power, 50MW/100MWh energy storage, 80MVA access capacity, and a 30% self-generation and self-consumption ratio, the unit electricity cost under the green power direct connection model is approximately 0.606 yuan/kWh, about 8.58% lower than the 0.663 yuan/kWh under the traditional electricity usage model. Among these, the construction and maintenance of new dedicated lines and energy storage investment and replacement costs constitute the main incremental costs, partially offsetting the grid-side fee savings.
"Determining sources by load" is the core of green power direct connection project design, and the degree of source-load matching determines the economic boundary of the project. Green power direct connection is not simply about increasing new energy installed capacity, but requires coordinated configuration of wind power, solar power, energy storage, and grid access capacity around the user's hourly load curve. Scenario analysis in the report shows that, with total installed capacity unchanged, once the power source structure deviates from the baseline configuration, the temporal mismatch between new energy output and user load increases, which will push up energy storage configuration and grid access capacity, thereby increasing the project's comprehensive electricity cost. The comprehensive electricity cost rises from 0.606 yuan/kWh under the baseline scenario to 0.625–0.643 yuan/kWh, and the cost reduction advantage gradually narrows, indicating that there is no unified optimal configuration for green power direct connection that applies to all users, and the actual project plan still needs to be determined through 8,760-hour hourly simulation.
Users with high load rates and stable loads have a better foundation for green power direct connection applications, and continuous-production manufacturing is expected to become an important application scenario. High load rates and stable load curves can increase the proportion of local consumption of new energy and enhance the temporal matching between local new energy output and user demand, thereby reducing energy storage configuration requirements and public grid access capacity. For 24-hour continuous production users such as battery cells and modules, wind power's better all-weather output characteristics can cover part of the nighttime baseload, while solar power supplements daytime electricity demand. Wind-solar complementarity helps meet green power consumption requirements while reducing dependence on energy storage and the public grid. Therefore, the promotion space for green power direct connection depends not only on new energy resource conditions, but also on the load side's electricity usage scale, load rate, and curve stability.
As projects extend from single construction to long-term operation, the competitive logic is expected to shift from the ability to acquire new energy resources to comprehensive capabilities across "source-load-storage-grid-trading." The value of green power direct connection projects comes not only from power generation revenue on the source side, but also involves comprehensive returns from load-side energy savings, PPAs, power trading, dedicated lines, and energy storage. As projects are replicated at scale, project developers need to simultaneously possess capabilities in new energy resource acquisition, source-load matching, energy storage configuration, power trading, and comprehensive energy operations. The value of the industry chain is expected to extend further from a single power source development segment toward source-load coordination and operations services.
Risk analysis: risks of policy advancement falling short of expectations; risks of source-load matching falling short of expectations; risks of power market price fluctuations; and risks of rising project investment costs.