China’s largest system integrator HyperStrong on how it will meet the needs of the international market

Energy-Storage.news: For those of our readers that are unfamiliar with the company, please introduce HyperStrong.  

Dr. Guang Yang, President of Technology, HyperStrong: HyperStrong was founded in 2011 and we have dedicated ourselves to BESS technology for almost 14 years. We are the number one in China with more than 30GWh deployed across 300 projects and ranked top three globally by S&P in terms of newly added capacity in 2023, and by BloombergNEF as a Tier-1 energy storage provider. We’re well established in China and have been expanding internationally since 2023. We have already got some contracts and delivered projects in major markets, and expect fast growth in the coming year.  

We provide energy storage system (ESS) products at a competitive performance, but also have a big focus on supply chain security and fast delivery, and now there is also a big emphasis on the services side going beyond the traditional O&M. We believe that as an ESS equipment supplier, as an integrator, we know our product the best, so we could do better than independent service companies.

Not only that, at the beginning of the project cycle, we do our best to help our customers. This will involve technical solutions and ROI evaluation and optimisation. Thanks to the huge amount of data gathered from the many projects already delivered, we know the performance of our equipment, and we know from the market standpoint what the trading revenue looks like.

How will HyperStrong approach international markets differently compared to China? 

There are two big aspects to the equipment side. For instance, transportation becomes especially important. Inside China, road transportation of 20-foot or even 40-foot containers is totally fine.  

But for international markets there is more of a limit on weight and size. That’s why we launched the HyperBlock M for deliveries next year. It’s in 10-foot standard units, much easier for transportation and much less weight. This is a product designed for utility-scale applications, with each unit carrying a capacity of 3.2MWh. We made it super flexible so you can assemble it as one, two, four or eight, either side-by-side or back-to-back. We can easily satisfy our customers’ needs with this modular product.  

That will be our main utility-scale product going forward, but we currently also offer HyperBlock III, a 20-foot containerised ESS product.  

Another aspect is our increasing emphasis on localised and comprehensive services. For EMEA, HyperStrong has service centres in Germany, Finland, Italy and the UAE. Our local teams service customers in their surrounding areas on sales, technical solutions, capital raising assistance, O&M etc. Only when our customers are happy with our products and services can we become successful. 

We’re really starting to see a bit of a reversal of the trend to standardisation in the industry, with lots of new products with a different design, different size, different configuration. What’s driving that? 

I think people started realising that bigger may not be necessarily better. That’s the biggest reason. You know, if you look at a battery cell, two years ago, 280Ah was standard, then 314Ah, and now cell manufacturers seem to be diverging. There are many offerings of a bigger size in the battery cells. As far as we can see, the cell vendors seem to be going up towards 587Ah, or over 600Ah battery cells for higher energy density and lower cost.  

For HyperStrong, as a system integrator, we work closely with the cell providers to define the best size and the best energy density from a system standpoint. Again, bigger isn’t always better. We’ve seen vendors providing more than 1000Ah cells. That might not be the best direction from our standpoint.  

Because of that, we defined HyperBlock M to utilise the current offering, but also be compatible to the future generation, either 587Ah or more than 600Ah cells. The ultimate goal is for the system to have the best cost-performance ratio. 

How do you use artificial intelligence (AI) to empower the lifecycle of energy storage?  

Firstly, we have been working with the battery management system (BMS) and big data for a long time, almost since the inception of HyperStrong.  

We really emphasise the value of the data, for us and for our customers. In the last few years, because of the rapid progress of AI technology, we have started integrating AI technology into our products. There are two major portions. One is in the control system of the BESS, the other is the AI platform.  

Customers use our products in different user cases and different scenarios. In the past you would just provide a standard product and a one-size-fits-all solution, but that’s changed.  

If you think about the 30GWh we’ve deployed globally, they are used in all kinds of extreme environmental conditions, in the desert, in a very high altitude, or very low altitude, or on the coastline. And different climates mean different risks for our products. For us to guarantee the best performance of all the products, we need to understand the customer’s needs, and then we can tailor the thermal management system and the overall control strategy.  

Also, we are able to predict the usage pattern so that we can also change the charging and discharging strategies for our system. Again, the ultimate goal would be, whether through thermal management or charging discharging control strategy, to try to provide customers with the highest round-trip efficiency, the longest lifecycle possible, and the highest availability at the end of the day. These numbers will determine the amount of profit our customers will make. 

The second part is our AI platform. The drawback of real-time data is that it’s expensive for people to store long-term data locally because of resource constraints. But our cloud platform has all the capabilities in terms of storage and computing power, so that’s how we can gather more value from the data in the cloud platform.

We’ve done a lot of artificial intelligence modelling on the platform for fault analysis and preventative maintenance. Then we integrate those technologies with our O&M service, especially in China, where we’ve already established that for many years as part of the day-to-day work for our maintenance team.  

Lastly, also equally important, once we have the data and the AI technology in the cloud, we can get results back and then feed that back to our R&D team. So now you really see how data drives the product design cycle and then forms a closed loop. That’s how we improve our product, day-by-day.  

How do you ensure on-time delivery and high performance?  

As a company headquartered in China, I think supply chain management and manufacturing capability are our biggest advantages, to ensure both product performance and delivery.  

We have people asking us how we select the different battery cells or different HVAC components or different PCS, and how do we make sure we always make the best choice? Data tells that story. We spent US$20 million on a testing facility in Beijing, and another one in Zhuhai, Guangdong province.

For those two facilities, we do a lot of testing on battery cells and key components, to make sure the components that go into our product are the best we can get. The components have to meet our standards to be accepted into our system. That’s one part.  

For our supply chain, we have a good relationship with almost all the top vendors in China. That’s why we can secure these supplies, maybe even years ahead. That’s how we guarantee the supply chain security. Once we have that security, we can guarantee efficient project delivery, which is very important for the international markets. Because no matter how long the customers negotiate the contract with us for, once the signature is there, they will ask for the product as soon as possible—the faster, the better. We have the supply chain, we have the manufacturer capability, so we can guarantee delivery.  

For PCS, we work with European companies, and also with Chinese vendors. We also have our own AC block, too. That’s another of our strengths: we are quite open to integrating with other vendors’ components. So even though we have our own offering, if a customer has a customisation need, we can respond really fast.  

Is there anything else you wanted to tell our readers about HyperStrong, its products and technology?  

We are very confident that we’re offering competitive ESS equipment and on top of that, we guarantee fast and on-time delivery because of the manufacturing capability and the supply chain security. But I think those are the basics for any system integrator.

On top of that, we emphasise a lot more today on the service and how we can best empower our customers. Because, as we can see, BESS is not only utilised on the utility grid. Now we see more and more use cases around the data center, oil fields, and charging stations. Different use cases have different requirements. HyperStrong, as a system integrator, responded quickly in the past, and we’ll keep doing that.  

The major topic is how we can best serve our customers, with a fast response and flexibility in terms of meeting their customisation needs. For the full lifecycle all the way from planning to O&M or even trading, we have a comprehensive technology solution. So, customers, please let HyperStrong know how we can best help you. We’re always here to help overcome all your challenges.