Portable power station suddenly becoming popular-what’s the reason

In the past two years, outdoor power station has become more and more popular in the global market. According to the data, in the past four years, the scale of portable power station market has increased by 23 times.

From the perspective of sales distribution, the United States and Japan account for more than 75% of the market. Chinese companies have become the biggest beneficiaries of this wave of market boom. In 2020, the output of portable power station products in China accounted for 91.9% of the world.

Many companies in China done well in the field of energy storage, which can be shown by top 10 energy storage BMS companies in China.The rapid growth of the portable power station market, in addition to the increase in the demand for outdoor products due to the release of the epidemic control, the technological change on the supply side is also a factor that cannot be ignored. 

The development of the new energy vehicle industry has greatly improved the power station efficiency of lithium batteries, but the cost has been rapidly reduced. The average unit cost of lithium batteries has decreased by nearly 80% in the past decade.

It is predicted that the power station market will grow at a compound annual growth rate of 48% in the next five years and reach 80 billion RMB in 2026. A leading power station enterprise with annual sales of 10 billion RMB will be born in China in the near future.

What is portable power station

Portable power station is simply understood as a large-scale portable battery. At present, the main application scenarios are outdoor activities and emergency power consumption. It can supply power for smart phones, tablet computers, UAVs, lighting lamps, refrigerators, rice cookers and other digital devices and small household appliances, and alleviate power shortage problems such as power shortage, power failure and emergency rescue.

Compared with common batteries, outdoor portable power station products have higher charging capacity and output power. Portable power station products can be divided into two categories according to the charging capacity of a single machine: one is small and portable equipment with a charging capacity of 0.5-1kwh; The other type is the equipment with an electric capacity of 1.5kwh to 2kwh, which can mainly replace the previous market of oil fired generators.

In terms of output power, portable power station products can reach 100W to 2200W, and are equipped with USB, AC, DC, type-C, PD and other interfaces, which can supply power for digital devices such as refrigerators, rice cookers and small household appliances. Since power station products usually carry inverters, they can support AC and DC output, and the price is usually between $300 and $3000. In contrast, the commonly used portable battery can only support DC power output.

In addition to charging in advance, the portable power station can also be used with solar panels. The output power of the solar panel is between 60W and 200W, so that when the battery is exhausted, the photovoltaic power station can be charged outdoors to form a small-scale solar power generation system to achieve continuous off grid power generation and extend the power supply life.

Overview of global portable power station development

From the perspective of the global market, China is the main producer of portable power station. According to the data, in 2020, China’s output of portable power station products accounted for 91.9% of the world’s total.

Among them, the top five are Hello tech, EcoFlow, Poweroak, Anker and Goal Zero, with their income accounting for 50%. At present, portable power station enterprises are mainly divided into three categories: portable battery, 3C digital brand and lithium battery or new energy enterprises. 

Among them, the world’s representative portable power station enterprises mainly include Hello Tech, Goal Zero, EcoFlow, Ooweroak, World Power, Desay, etc; Digital brands Pisen, ROMOSS, Baseus, REMAX, HOCO, ARUN, BULL, Anker, etc. also invested in succession; China’s leading consumer electronics enterprises HUAWEI and Millet also announced their investments one after another.

Among them, EcoFlow, established in 2017, has become a leading enterprise in the field of portable power station in less than 5 years. EcoFlow established a battery R & D department in Dajiang to lead the team to break the bottleneck of UAV endurance. Since its establishment, it has completed four rounds of financing.

In June 2021, EcoFlow completed the round B financing of over $100 million, which was led by SEQUOIA CHINA and co invested by Hillhouse and CICC. After this round of financing, EcoFlow is valued at more than $1 billion. EcoFlow is sought after by capital mainly because its core competitiveness is high-tech support and high-end brand. The biggest problem of portable power station is the charging time and output power.

For example, the charging time of ordinary power station batteries is too long, as long as 10 hours, and it can not supply power to high-power appliances. Relying on the strong scientific and technological team and R & D expenditure, EcoFlow’s products are based on the C-end market, with fast technical iteration and strong sense of technology, covering the high-power electrification demand, and becoming the leading enterprise in the industry.

It is known that EcoFlow has currently launched two outdoor power supply product lines to the market, namely, RIVER series and DELTA series, and also launched solar panels, modular power packs and other accessories. Its products are all equipped with the standard X-Stream lightning fast charging technology, which has almost subverted the entire outdoor power market.

It takes only one hour to charge the battery from 0% to 80% and 1.6 hours to charge it to 100%, which is the fastest charging speed in the same type of products at present.

Actually, the words “outdoor power station” or “portable power station” have not appeared for a long time, and the early market is also very small. Therefore, in the early development of EcoFlow, mass financing is the key to its growth. According to statistics, EcoFlow has participated in the public fundraising of the website for four times.

In addition, in order to ensure that users get the product at the first time, they will give a discount to EcoFlow fans. During the KickStarter crowdfunding period, the price of DELTA 1600 is $699, and the price of DELTA 1800 is $799, which really allows the product to enter the family.

Why is portable power station suddenly becoming popular

The sudden popularity of portable power station is driven by both the supply side and the demand side. From the demand side, the popularity of outdoor activities in developed countries in Europe and America is high, and the demand for outdoor energy products has always existed.

Looking at the two major markets of Japan and the United States, the proportion of people in the United States participating in outdoor activities is 48%, which is conducive to the rapid penetration of portable power station products and has a broad market space.

At the same time, Japan has frequent earthquake disasters and strong national awareness of disaster prevention. Emergency standby products are sold well in Japan all the year round. The large amount of COVID-19 catalytic products benefited both outdoor and emergency scenarios. 

On the one hand, under the normalized epidemic prevention and control, the enthusiasm for global outdoor sports is high, and outdoor consumption such as family self driving tours, small picnics, camping, photography and fishing is upgraded, and outdoor power supply has become the mainstream of short-distance power consumption.

On the other hand, uncertain factors such as the epidemic and power outages have pushed up the standby demand of emergency scenarios, and the use of portable power station at home has increased. 

From the supply side, technological changes have greatly improved the convenience and practicality of products. In the early days, the power supply for outdoor and emergency situations was mainly provided by small-scale oil-fired generators or lead-acid batteries, but they all had their own disadvantages.

After the fuel generator is placed for a long time, the parts will have problems and must be repaired and maintained frequently. The other is that the noise is very large, the operation is complicated, the volume is relatively large, and the movement is limited; Lead acid batteries also have their own problems, namely, short life and poor endurance.

With the upgrading and progress of lithium battery technology and the continuous reduction of cost under large-scale commercil application, all these provide conditions for the popularity of portable power station products. It is known that the large-scale production of power station batteries is inseparable from the significant increase in energy density brought about by the technological breakthrough of lithium batteries. 

With the support of demand growth, technological progress and cost reduction, portable power station has been popular since 2018 and has completely popular in 2020. From 2018 to 2021, the global portable power station market will be 470 million RMB, 1.34 billion RMB, 4.26 billion RMB and 11.13 billion RMB.

The enthusiasm of the market soon attracted the attention of the capital. SEQUOIA CHINA、Hillhouse、CICC、FORTUNE CAPITAL and other innovative projects invested in succession, and Poweroak and other innovative projects developed rapidly.

Now it is gradually dominated by lithium batteries, and solar panels are used as supporting power station systems to realize self storage and self use such as Tesla’s solar roof and Powerwall and a lithium battery integrated household power station system which can be used for off grid household self generation and power storage backup.