Mercedes-Benz exits home energy storage market to dissolve US energy storage sector

Positive rob into electric vehicles at the same time, the major car companies also tend to think of whether at the same time run the same application of lithium battery of battery energy storage, on the one hand, out of the battery can be used as battery energy storage applications, can be said that kill two birds with one stone. On the one hand, the future electric vehicles are very likely to be combined with the smart grid to become one of the power grid dispatching resources, allowing traditional car manufacturers to cross the energy field. Moreover, Tesla, the enemy of the traditional car manufacturer, is doing this. However, interlaced like a mountain, Mercedes-Benz quickly stopped after the water temperature test. At the end of April 2018, it stopped production of household energy storage battery products and dissolved the US energy storage department.

Tesla launched Power wall products in 2015, and it can be said to grab all eyes in the home energy storage market, but the whole market is still only a marketing drama. Tesla really wins marketing exposure and brand image, in fact, Power wall shipments. The amount does not have much substantive influence. Even so, the industry still hopes that someone can come out as a "Tesla killer". In April 2016, Daimler, the parent company of Mercedes-Benz, decided to respond to the expectations of the industry and set up a subsidiary Mercedes-Energy (Mercedes- Benz Energy GmbH) launched a domestic battery energy storage product, on the one hand, strong Tesla, on the one hand, it also competes with Germany's own decentralized energy manufacturer Sonnen.

Daimler plans to enter the US market in early 2017. In November 2016, it announced the establishment of an independent subsidiary in the United States, Mercedes-Benz Energy Americas, which specializes in the sale of household battery energy storage products, and the US CEO Boris. Borisvon Bormann, who plans to use three years of experience in the US market, to single out Tesla's Power wall, and soon to partner with US residential solar installer Vivint to quickly enter the market. At that time, Mercedes-Benz was ambitious and claimed to combine the Mercedes-Benz brand, the global market scale, and the manufacturing supply chain to capture this growing new market.

Unfortunately, contrary to expectations, after a year and a half, Feng Polman left, American Mercedes-Benz Energy failed to break into the US energy market. Mercedes-Benz announced that it would suspend energy storage products, shut down US Mercedes-Benz energy, and employees will be transferred to other businesses in Daimler.

The reason for the failure of Mercedes-Benz energy is quite basic. The battery for electric vehicles needs to be able to output a large amount of power in a short time, and it can cope with all the conditions of driving out of the door. For example, it can adapt to various weather conditions and still operate in the cold weather, but Household energy storage batteries in the warm home, will not freeze, will not move, do not need such high specifications, use electric vehicles to build a household energy storage system, obviously "good too", the cost is not cost-effective. Tesla also faced the same problem. After the second generation of Power wall launched a year and a half, it had to raise the price of Power wall from $5,500 to $5,900 in April 2018.

The demand for rapid response of electric vehicles is also fundamentally different from the energy storage requirements for transferring electricity. This is why electric vehicles mainly use lithium-cobalt-nickel-manganese ternary polymer lithium batteries, while distributed energy manufacturers, Sonn, Simplici Power Company (SimpliPhi Power) mainly uses lithium iron phosphate batteries. Different application methods, different battery characteristics, and even the optimal management method is different. Songn claims that its battery products can minimize battery degradation under its intelligent management, and life expectancy can be extended far beyond major competition. Opponents, long-term use has a more cost advantage.

Mercedes-Benz's battery energy products are also not suitable for the US market. On the one hand, the US household electricity consumption is higher than that of Germany. On the one hand, German customers purchase energy storage systems mainly for storing their own rooftop solar power for their own use, and US users have more uses. Used as a backup power source, someone used to divert electricity time to avoid peak power, some used to match demand response service, and others used to build a completely independent microgrid. In order to adapt to the diversified use of the United States, Mercedes-Benz Energy has been the mainstay of inverters, management software and application interfaces. Initially, SMA inverters were used. Later, many inverter suppliers were replaced, and eventually they were mainly changed to Schneider Electric (Schneider Electric).

In the past, some industries thought that it would be easy for them to enter the field of energy storage, but the fact is not. In the case of interlacing, such as the mountain, Mercedes-Benz faced many unexpected challenges. In the end, the head office had to break the wrist and withdraw from the US energy storage market.

However, Daimler will continue to aggressively enter the field of electric vehicles. In Germany, the energy industry will transform into a major power grid-level energy storage market. This market can be applied to a large number of second-hand batteries for electric vehicles that are expected to be replaced after a period of popularity. As for the household energy storage market, experts who have left the decentralized energy source, such as Song En, have gone to business.

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