As the first generation of domestic photovoltaic entrepreneurs have ushered in the era of succession, the "second generation of photovoltaic" has embarked on the "C position" and taken the lead in the market storm.

With a total market capitalization of about 40.2 billion yuan and one of the world's largest photovoltaic module suppliers, Trina Solar (688599. SH) recently announced that in order to further improve the corporate governance structure and promote the standardization of the work of the board of directors, the board of directors of the company has added 1 co-chairman. All directors unanimously agreed to elect Ms. Gao Haichun as the co-chairman of the third board of directors of the company. Gao Jifan continues to serve as the chairman, executive director and general manager of the company, guiding the company's overall strategic planning and operation management. Gao Haichun will also serve as President of the company's new Solutions Business Group.

Gao Haichun

Born in 1993, Gao Haichun has a special identity. According to the announcement, she has a father-daughter relationship with Gao Jifan, the actual controller of Trina Solar, a mother-daughter relationship with Wu Chunyan, a shareholder who holds more than 5% of Trina Solar's shares, a concerted action relationship with Jiangsu Panji Investment Co., Ltd., a shareholder who holds more than 5% of the company's shares, and an uncle-nephew relationship with Gao Jiqing, a director and senior manager of the company.

During the ups and downs of the domestic photovoltaic industry, Trina Solar has successfully survived many rounds of cyclical winters and is a representative of the conservative faction. At its peak, Trina Solar's market value once exceeded 190 billion yuan. Gao Haichun has been in the making for a long time, and her resume shows that she graduated from Brown University in the United States, and since June 2017, she has served as the deputy general manager of the strategic investment department of Trina Solar and the chairman of Trina Fujia Energy Co., Ltd. Currently, she also serves as a senior executive of Trina Xingyuan Investment Development Co., Ltd. and Jiangsu Trina Hydrogen Technology Co., Ltd.

After the termination of the spin-off and listing, Tianhe's "daughter" became the co-chairman

Tianhe Fujia, which is helmed by Gao Haichun, just experienced an IPO run aground a month ago. Trina Solar announced on the evening of December 8 that it decided to terminate the planned spin-off of the listing of its holding subsidiary, Trina Fujia.

Trina Solar, which now has business segments such as photovoltaic modules, energy storage systems, distributed systems, distributed operation and maintenance, and photovoltaic brackets, announced in April 2023 the spin-off plan of Trina Solar's distributed business. According to Trina Solar's official website and its financial report data, the company's distributed photovoltaic business ranks among the top two in the world, with a market share of 20% of domestic users, and the distributed system business shipped more than 3.2GW in the first half of 2024. During the same period, the scale of Tianhe Fujia's operation and maintenance photovoltaic power plants has reached 14GW, an increase of more than 80% year-on-year.

However, since last year, the domestic distributed photovoltaic market has changed dramatically. As the swarming distributed photovoltaic began to eat away at the security of the power grid, many places had to introduce new policies to strictly control the disorderly development of distributed photovoltaic and guide it to enter the rational investment track. In October last year, the National Energy Administration issued the Administrative Measures for the Development and Construction of Distributed Photovoltaic Power Generation (Draft for Comments), which led to the subversion of the investment logic of the market. Not only that, after the full entry into the market, distributed PV will face the income risk of falling electricity prices. Tighter IPO and refinancing policies and the "New China Nine Measures" have also added uncertainty to spin-offs.

At the third quarter results meeting last year, Trina Solar's management said that on the whole, the company's advantageous market (the United States) and advantageous sectors (residential distribution) are facing strong external uncertainty, and the company's choice is to slow down into the corner and not take too many risks, so what we saw in the third quarter is the state of phased deceleration of the company's advantageous market. As for how these risk factors will evolve in the future, and whether the deceleration strategy is correct, it will take time to observe.

This is one of the series of risks that enterprise managers must face in the current new round of industry trough.

In the first three quarters of 2024, Trina Solar's operating income was 63.147 billion yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 22.16%; The net profit attributable to the parent company was -847 million yuan, a year-on-year profit turned into a loss. Regarding the change in performance, Trina Solar said that it was mainly due to the year-on-year decline in the selling price of photovoltaic module-related products and the decline in the profitability of photovoltaic products due to the supply and demand of the photovoltaic industry chain during the reporting period.

Trina Solar announced that Gao Haichun will also serve as the president of the company's solution business group, and is committed to leading the company's transformation from a photovoltaic product manufacturer to a photovoltaic storage smart energy solution service provider, leading the development of new scenarios of photovoltaic and storage integration, and helping the company build a differentiated competitive advantage. At the same time, as Co-Chairman, she will assist the Chairman in carrying out the daily work of the Board of Directors, ensuring that the work of the Board is carried out in a standardized manner and plays a strategic guiding role.

The "second generation of light" walked to the forefront

As the saying goes, it's hard to start a business, and it's even harder to keep a business. Photovoltaic enterprises should control risks in the ups and downs, and step on the pace of technology iteration under heavy assets, which is a very high test of scale management and time management capabilities. As the industry continues to grow, so do uncertainties.

Gao Jifan previously admitted in an exclusive interview with The Paper that it is "difficult" to run a photovoltaic company. This is due to the fact that the influencing factors of the industry not only originate from technology, supply chain and other aspects, but also are highly susceptible to the impact of global trade policies, and "little black swan" events continue to occur. Even in recent years, it has stood in the center of the halo of carbon peak and carbon neutrality, and the "overall challenges of the photovoltaic industry are not smaller than in the past, or even greater", and the whole industry must stand at a higher latitude to deal with the challenges, "the higher the latitude, the more uncertainties." ”

In practice, the actual combat ability is enriched, and the "second generation of light" has gradually become the protagonist of the new energy stage.

In March 2023, 34-year-old Liu Shuqi, the daughter of Liu Hanyuan, the richest man in Sichuan, officially took over the baton and became Tongwei Co., Ltd. (600438. SH) is the new Chairman and CEO. Tongwei is a global "double leader" enterprise in the aquafeed and photovoltaic industry, and has the world's largest production capacity of high-purity crystalline silicon and cells in the photovoltaic field.

Photovoltaic glass faucet Follett (601865. Born in 1987, Ruan Ze Yun, daughter of founder Nguyen Hong Luong, took over as president of Flat in June 2023.

Daqo Energy (688303. Xu Xiang, the son of Xu Guangfu, the actual controller, joined the family business after returning from studying abroad, and was elected as the vice chairman of the second board of directors of Daqo Energy in September 2022.

In just a few years, the photovoltaic equipment started with the CNC (603185. SH) has become a dark horse in the rapid rise of the photovoltaic silicon wafer track. Yang Jianliang, chairman of the company, and Yang Hao, general manager of the "post-90s" generation, are father and son.

Zhu Yufeng, the son of Zhu Gongshan, the founder of GCL Group, a large private clean energy group, was born in June 1981 and joined GCL Group after graduating from George Brown College in Canada in 2005. Zhu Yufeng currently serves as the vice chairman and president of GCL Group, and also serves as the vice chairman and president of GCL 002506 Group, two listed companies of GCL. SZ) and GCL-ET (002015.SZ).

JA Solar (002459. SZ) Jin Junhui and Jin Junmiao, the daughters of Jin Baofang, rarely appear in the public eye, but they all hold important positions in the JA Solar department.

Headquartered in Baoding, Hebei Province, Yingli Group was once one of the largest photovoltaic companies in China. In 2005, Miao Qing, the daughter of Miao Liansheng, the founder of Yingli Group, returned to Yingli in a low-key manner to promote the company's listing process on the NASDAQ, and in 2007, Miao Liansheng and LinkedIn rang the bell for listing on the New York Stock Exchange. At the beginning of 2022, Miao Qing served as the chairman of Yingli Group in a low-key manner, becoming the new head of this veteran photovoltaic company.