With many of its products ranking first, it aims to be the industry leader!

New energy is rising rapidly.

With its advantages of being clean, environmentally friendly, safe, flexible, and widely adaptable, new energy has accurately matched the consumer pain points of the electricity demand market in the new era, and the market size has grown rapidly. Countries have continued to introduce policies to support new energy, and the 2019 coronavirus pandemic has stimulated the accelerated growth of global e-commerce, which is also helping to promote the rapid development and growth of the entire industry.

Benefiting from the vigorous development of new energy, many companies have emerged internationally, and capital has continuously gathered in this field. RENOGY New Energy (hereinafter referred to as RENOGY) is a "darling" favored by investors. In June 2022, RENOGY successfully completed its E round of financing and officially joined the ranks of new energy unicorns.

RENOGY's headquarters in Los Angeles, USA

Let’s go back to 12 years ago, when Li Yi, a female doctor born after 1985, founded RENOGY in the United States. The meaning of its brand name is “Renewable Innovative Energy”, and it officially embarked on the journey of new energy innovation.

From the initial single product of solar panels, RENOGY has gradually expanded its product categories, forming today's new energy product ecosystem from clean power generation, efficient energy storage, to smart electricity use. With high-quality product performance and services, RENOGY has grown into a leading innovative brand in the global consumer new energy field, with remarkable achievements in more than 30 countries and markets around the world, including the United States, Europe, Australia, and Japan. On the DTC e-commerce platform, RENOGY's sales of many products are among the best; the performance of the first quarter of 2022 is close to the total performance of 2021.

RENOGY, which constantly observes user needs and promotes the development of industry technology , is committed to being the industry leader forever! What is the confidence behind RENOGY's "ambition"? Therefore, the editor talked with Michelle, the head of RENOGY's global DTC business. In reviewing the development history of RENOGY, we also tried to think about the development direction of the entire new energy industry, and at the same time we are committed to providing a successful model for peers to learn from.

Now, let us take a look at the story of RENOGY.

Founded in 2010, RENOGY aims to make more people's lives benefit from new energy

"In 2010, Li Yi, the founder of RENOGY, who had not yet graduated from school, was studying for a doctorate in condensed matter physics in the United States and conducting research on superconductors in the energy field. At that time, she founded RENOGY New Energy in her school apartment, focusing on the innovation of new energy consumer products." said Michelle, head of RENOGY's global DTC business.

This decision was decisive and bold. In 2010, new energy was niche and preliminary, far less popular than it is now! However, during Li Yi's research on superconductors in the energy field, he realized that new energy is the future development trend and has unlimited prospects!

Facts show that new energy is indeed a well-deserved blue ocean market.

Electricity, the most important basic living facility in modern life , does not cover every demand scenario. Mobile, remote areas without electricity or areas and scenarios with unstable power supply urgently need independent and reliable power systems. At the same time, in areas prone to natural disasters such as earthquakes, tsunamis, hurricanes, fires, and blizzards, residents need new energy-related products to ensure their basic living needs after the disaster. In addition, with the development of the times, the concept of low-carbon and environmentally friendly life has gradually penetrated into all aspects of consumers' lives, and the market demand for clean energy represented by solar energy continues to surge.

"Especially since 2020, the penetration rate of e-commerce has increased significantly, accelerating the online development of the new energy industry. The Russia-Ukraine war has also triggered consumer panic about energy, and the company's performance in the German market has rapidly doubled this year." RENOGY, which has focused on the new energy market since 2010, has developed rapidly around the world and become a leading brand with its insight into user needs.

In the initial journey of new energy innovation, RENOGY sold easy-to-use solar kits (DIY Solar Kits) directly to end users through eBay. The early kits included solar panels, controllers, cables and other solar power generation products.

(Early RENOGY solar kit)

With the deepening understanding of user needs and the improvement of its own product technology capabilities, RENOGY began to expand its product categories, including energy storage, power distribution and energy intelligent control products of various specifications.

"Now, RENOGY mainly designs and develops new energy products based on three major power consumption scenarios: outdoor leisure, mobile transportation and household electricity consumption. Whether ordinary consumers or corporate customers, they can obtain unique new energy power supply solutions based on scenario power consumption needs from RENOGY."

In-depth communication with consumers has expanded from the United States to more than 30 countries and regions around the world!

The United States is the starting point of RENOGY's business.

Whether it is the number of RVs owned or the conditions for using other new energy products, the United States has unique advantages in the development of new energy.

"While the founder Li Yi was studying in the United States, he was thinking about how to create a new energy brand with global influence so that more people can benefit from new energy and thus increase the proportion of clean energy use." Michelle said that RENOGY first established a product and service center in Los Angeles, California, and its business has gradually expanded to markets such as Australia, Japan, and Europe. With its high-quality product performance and services, many products have won the favor of consumers and quickly ranked first in related categories in many regions.

Currently, RENOGY's business has covered more than 30 countries and regions around the world, with 9 major operation centers in the United States, China, Japan, Thailand and the Philippines.

The market conditions and consumer demands of each market are not the same, and there are also differences in the segmentation of best-selling products. "For example, we have a charger whose main function is to charge the battery at the front of the RV to the battery at the rear living area. During the promotion process in various markets, we found that the user perception of this product is different in different countries. For example, the user acceptance of this product is higher in Europe and Australia."

No matter which market you are in, meeting consumer needs is the key to success, and RENOGY has achieved perfection in this regard.

Michelle said that before launching a new product, RENOGY did not sell whatever product it wanted online, but first fully understood the needs of users and provided them with the products they really needed. This required close communication with consumers, so when the store was first opened on the e-commerce platform in 2010, Li Yi conducted one-on-one interviews with 100 customers to fully understand their needs.

Until now, RENOGY has maintained the habit of in-depth communication with consumers.

"RENOGY has its own user community, RENOGY POWER PLUS COMMUNITY, where we invite some active customers to conduct one-on-one interviews. We are willing to listen carefully even if they complain. After the communication, we will analyze and summarize the entire content and use it as an important basis to improve and optimize products and services. Not only that, before the product is officially released, RENOGY will also send some DEMOs to customers and invite them to test them. Therefore, RENOGY knows very well what users want and what their pain points are, and the products it launches are naturally very suitable for consumer needs."

With the popularization of solar energy applications, more users are eager to try "new energy". Even if they know that solar energy can generate electricity, they may give up when they see how complicated the construction of these systems is. Based on this, RENOGY is committed to simplifying the use of products and trying to achieve zero threshold. It has developed and designed "plug and play" kits. Whether it is a 1-10 kWh kit suitable for RVs or a 10-20 kWh kit suitable for family cabins, it effectively helps users solve the problem of product selection and installation.

The ability to understand user needs so well has a lot to do with the close collaboration between RENOGY teams in the United States, Japan, and China, as well as agile network operations.

RENOGY believes that providing good consumer services is the foundation for a brand's sustainable development. "Having users is equivalent to building a good moat for the brand." Thanks to in-depth communication with consumers and good services, RENOGY now has a very high fan stickiness and a good product repurchase rate.

Don’t be a follower, be a leader in the industry

On the one hand, RENOGY designs products and services based on user needs, and on the other hand, it focuses on research and development. It has now established a highly efficient and collaborative global innovation team.

Innovation is the only option for an enterprise to maintain its vitality. RENOGY is well aware of this and has been committed to raising the threshold of the company's R&D and product differentiation.

"New energy needs to innovate in products, technologies and business models at the consumer level, and meet the needs of electricity users, in order to truly increase the proportion of clean energy use and achieve sustainable development for mankind." It is understood that RENOGY has 9 offices in 5 countries around the world, focusing on product innovation, technology research and development, user services, and smart manufacturing teams. In the professional and technical fields of solar energy, energy storage, power supply, energy Internet of Things, etc., there are 117 core inventions and patents. Among the international team of more than 800 people, 37% of the members focus on product, technology, and service innovation.

Michelle and her team observed that the solar panels currently sold on the market do not look very different on the surface, and it is difficult for users to distinguish and choose products based on their appearance, shape, and parameters. Therefore, price and brand impression are key. Based on this, RENOGY invests in product raw materials, processes, technologies, and services to ensure that each product can receive fair praise from users.

"We want to be the market leader, not a follower." Michelle said that new brands are constantly emerging in the market, and every company inevitably faces the problem of product homogeneity. In this context, we need to continue to innovate, which is very important and a capability that the company must possess.

On the eBay platform, Q1 2022 performance has already reached 50% of 2021 performance

As one of the important sales channels, direct e-commerce sales have made a significant contribution to the continued growth of RENOGY's sales.

eBay was the first platform for RENOGY to directly operate DTC in its early days, and the store's sales have been growing steadily. Among them, the performance in Q1 of 2022 has reached 50% of the performance in 2021.

The eBay team, mainly composed of account managers and category managers , provides all-round support including account security, policy support, logistics solutions, brand promotion and marketing activities to meet the needs of brands at different stages, protects brands, helps brands eliminate some hidden dangers in the operation process, and promotes category sales growth. In Michelle's view, close cooperation and efficient collaboration with the platform operation team have effectively helped the development of the RENOGY brand.

"The overall business level of eBay's account managers and category managers is very high. Their operations have greatly improved the security of accounts, including the accuracy of activity execution." Under the guidance of the eBay team, RENOGY participated in eBay's US promotion from April 5 to 15 this year. During the period, store visits increased by 107.7% year-on-year, and sales increased by 207.6% year-on-year. All indicators have been significantly improved.

Since the beginning of 2021, the search volume for clean energy on eBay has continued to surge. In the whole-house off-grid solar power generation system, the sales of solar panels and lithium batteries that can be used in a variety of scenarios have shown triple-digit growth on the platform. The search volume for solar panels, inverters, lithium batteries, storage batteries and other solar peripheral products has ushered in a new round of growth at the beginning of this year.

As the epidemic stimulates the booming online economy, sales of clean energy products on global e-commerce platforms represented by eBay will continue to rise.

Positive factors continue to be released, and the future prospects of new energy are still broad

The development space for new energy products will be even broader.

RENOGY believes that the clean energy market is far from reaching its growth ceiling and will continue to release huge dividends in the future.

First, against the backdrop of the global “dual carbon” goal, on May 18, the European Commission officially adopted the “REPowerEU” energy plan, which aims to increase the EU’s photovoltaic installed capacity to 320 GW by 2025, doubling the amount in 2020; by 2030, photovoltaic installed capacity will reach 600 GW, becoming the main source of electricity for the EU. This means that clean energy will become the choice of more and more global consumers.

At the same time, from the two dimensions of power generation and energy storage , this industry also holds huge opportunities.

In terms of power generation, diesel generators currently account for a large proportion of the entire portable power generation field, but diesel generators are noisy and produce odor pollution. As solar power generation continues to become more popular, solar power will gradually replace diesel generators in the future; in terms of energy storage, lithium batteries are gradually replacing traditional lead-acid batteries due to their more environmentally friendly, recyclable, and lighter characteristics, and their penetration rate is constantly increasing. There will definitely be crises in the process of alternating between the old and the new, but there are more opportunities.

In addition, the continuous reduction in the cost and installation cost of new energy products is also helping overseas consumers to increasingly favor clean energy.

For example, a 100-watt solar panel may have cost about $160 before. The widespread availability of materials has brought about technological updates and iterations, which has reduced production costs. Now the cost of solar panels has dropped to about $100. Consumers' installation costs are falling exponentially. Observing market data, it is found that between 2010 and 2020, the average installation cost of photovoltaic systems has dropped from more than $4,000 per kilowatt to more than $800.

Various favorable factors are drawing a broad blueprint for the development of enterprises. We still don’t know how many “RENOGY” this blue ocean will create in the future. But what is certain is that countless excellent Chinese brands are taking advantage of the trend and working hard to write their own dream-making legends!