On July 29, Hanergy Thin Film Power Group Ltd. released a new thin-film solar product "Hantile" in Beijing. The new product integrates Hanergy's world-leading flexible thin-film solar chip with roofing material, capable of efficient power generation with high safety level, a perfect fit for current aesthetic modern architectural design. As an upgrade to current distributed solar products and traditional roof tiles in the market, the "Hantile" possesses promising prospects, and its large-scale promotion will surely contribute greatly to the replacement of clean energy.
Guests attended the launch event included the following: Li Bingren, president of China Building Decoration Association, Li Hejun, Board Chairman of the Hanergy Holding Group, over 600 potential distributors and channel partners, and another 3000-odd people from local governments, industrial associations, financial organizations, as well as domestic and foreign media. They gathered together to witness the historical release of the Hantile, an upgraded-product inspired from the company's original Hanergy Civil Focusing solar products.
In his speech titled "One Tile, One Tree," Chairman Li Hejun remarked: "Hanergy took advantage of the lightness, thinness and flexibleness of thin-film solar power material and creatively integrated it with roof tile. This integration between technology and industrial products is a breakthrough in the history of construction; even more so, such creation is an innovation based on our Chinese culture."
Merging cutting-edge thin-film technology and traditional culture
"Qin bricks and Han tiles" have long been upheld in Chinese literature. From the Weiyang Palace of Western Han dynasty to the home of peasants, tiles have been considered not only as an important characteristic of Chinese architecture, but also endowed with cultural significance. To quote a famous folk saying "home is where the tile overhead", tile signifies home in the heart of the Chinese. All around us, everything is going through tremendous changes, except the material and function of tiles have remained the same, as their purposes are still simply protection from wind and rain, preservation of warmth, and decoration.
As today, the introduction of the Hantile will change all that! The Hantile, using laminated packaging technology, encapsulates a thin, light, flexible and efficient CIGS thin-film solar chip into ultra-clear float glass that not only able to maximized solar chip's conversion rate but fulfilling architectural aesthetic demands at the same time. Data shows that the current average conversion rate of the Hanergy's flexible thin-film chips used by the Hantile is 16.5% at the manufacturing level, such rate is expected to rise to 17.5% by end of the year, and such consistent growth is expected at the future.
"The Hantile highly reflects the essence of Chinese traditional culture and architectural philosophy. The choice of material and design considers practicality, incorporates aesthetic and humanistic values, and creates environmentally friendly architecture reflecting the harmony between human beings and nature. The product name – Hantile – is taken from and develops on Chinese culture as well as Hanergy technology," said Li Hejun.
At the event, during Mr. Li's speech, an all-in-one construction team was building a 50m2 rooftop with Hantile. About 40 minutes later, a rooftop covered with 168 pieces of Hantile for an installed capacity of 5000W had been completed and was ready to be displayed in front of guests.
Upgraded products and services and pioneering "Automatic custom service"
Current distributed solar power modules are generally installed on the surface of buildings, which cannot be part of them. As an upgraded version of these modules, the Hantile comes in three models: curved, flat and upturned C styles, which can cater to the aesthetical and individualized needs of most buildings.
In addition to integrating the thin-film solar chips for power generation, the Hantile the product series also contains accessory tiles of the same color and design to achieve consistency. As a one-stop service provider for complete clean energy solution, Hanergy provide customers with integrating consultancy, system design, installation, grid connection, user training, operation and maintenance data monitoring so on.
As a construction material, the Hantile has better performances than traditional tiles in terms of thermal insulation, heat preservation, fire prevention, infiltration prevention and hail prevention. The Hantile especially stands out with its waterproof performance because of its special design: glass material, U-type weather bar and F-type slot. In terms of structure, this product has perfect windproof and lightning protection design. It is able to generate power at a temperature from -40 degrees Celsius to 85 degrees Celsius. At present, the Hantile has received the China Compulsory Certification and the China Quality Certification, and passed installation testing, meeting all industrial requirements in term of product quality and safety.
At the launch event, Hanergy announced the market price of the triple arch solar tile as 1390 yuan/m2. Hanergy offers lifetime warranty and lifetime charged maintenance.
Hanergy's mature service system, fostered by residential power generation product and other distributed solar products, is being further upgraded. It has first put forward a service concept of "Automatic custom service," according to which all Hantile systems delivered to customers will be accompanied with an inverter data collector connected to a big data analysis platform at the Hanergy headquarters; when the operation data from the Hantile system diverge from local average data by 20%, the backstage supporter at the headquarters will issue orders for on-site repairs through its nation-wide network to solve any customer issue. All the orders and evaluations are made through the Customer Relationship Management system and the mobile APP "Hanergy Man". To further ensure its clients' interests, Hanergy also bought insurance for customers from a third party, the People's Insurance Company of China.
Strong distribution channels facing a trillion RMB market
According to data from the China Bricks & Tiles Industrial Association, in 2016, 1.01 billion m2 of tiles were sold. The market is still expanding with an annual speed of about 20%. According to the current price of the Hantile, the potential domestic market is estimated to be 1.4 trillion yuan annually. As for the global market, it is at least two times as big as China's market, bringing its potential market scale up to 2.8 trillion yuan.
The Hantile mainly targets newly-built commercial villas, urban and rural public buildings and self-built houses in rural areas. It aims at the construction of beautiful villages and towns. The Hantile is also highly competitive when it comes to rooftop reconstruction projects, such as renovating aged rooftops and turning flat rooftops into slanted ones.
Hanergy intends to share this rapidly growing market with its distributors. In recent years, Hanergy has creatively developed China's residential distributed power generation market; its specialized distributor model and system is now mature, offering a one-stop service system integrating marketing, installation and aftersales services covering all established municipal and county-level markets.
Learning from successful business models and market experiences, Hanergy gave authorization of Hantile at the municipal level under the "sole distributor in a city" channel policy. It is planned to absorb 300 distributors that will cover 90% of China's cities. Hanergy will establish its internal training system, "Hantile Distributors' College," to offer systematic training and support on marketing, design, installation, operation and maintenance and services.
(Photo: Hanergy)