Build the Nation through New and High Technologies

I left my job in the UK five years ago to return to China and actualize my ambition of founding an international company incarnating Chinese wisdoms to rival hi-tech innovation giants like IBM and Microsoft, with creativity, or the power of the mind, as its competitive edge, rather than intense exploitation of natural resources and cheap labor. In my capacity as general manager of Envision Energy, a world leading intelligent energy service provider, I have since put the idea into practice.

My job in the UK was as energy trade strategy analyst at the London office of Total, the France-based global energy company. Before that I was responsible for setting the prices of energy-related financial products at Barclays, one of the largest British commercial banks. In my opinion, the cost of new energy is a deciding factor in any possible change of mainstream energy. In the coming five to 10 years, wind power will be the only clean energy capable of competing with traditional fossil energy, in terms of production cost.

In early 2007 I headed the 10-member founding team of Envision, which I established in my hometown of Jiangyin, Jiangsu Province. When the business expanded, I set up an innovation center in Aarhus, Denmark, development & research and operation centers in Shanghai, a cloud service center in Houston, the U.S., and a new energy tech R & D center in Osaka, Japan. The 1,000 Plan, a national program to recruit professionals globally, recognized my work and gave me funding and policy support, and the municipal government of Jiangyin built infrastructures worth RMB 10 million or more. Capital and preferential policies from the provincial government also enabled my company to swiftly transform research results into tangible commercial products.

Zhang's company has a young and dynamic research team.

In general, the world’s wind power industry has entered a second round of development. This is particularly apparent in China. The likelihood of Envision finding its footing in the market and pressing on to become top notch depends on whether or not it can hit upon a strategy to maximize its technical advantages. In the past years we have tapped into international technology and talent resources, and established credos by solving key technical conundrums in the clean energy sector.

According to my estimations, China could hack the cost of wind power by 30 percent over the space of a few years by combining the domestic supply chain with mature technologies and operational experience from Europe and the U.S. and intricately contrived Japanese production models, along with global innovative resources.

As a nascent company, Envision looks to its staff to maintain competitiveness. We have a young technical team of an average age of 35. But it is a star-studded cast. Among the roster are former McKinsey consultants on development strategy and supply chain management, former hedge fund managers and investment bankers, workers who have held senior positions at prestigious companies like IBM, Siemens and General Electric, and leading figures in the wind power industry. International employees account for 20 percent of our workforce. More than 60 percent of our staff have master’s degrees or doctorates, and as many as 80 percent are technicians. The human mind is the fountain of creativity, and it is only by sustaining a team of high-caliber professionals that Envision can stay ahead of the competitive cohort.

In the past five years Envision has set several world records. Our 1.5 mega-watt smart turbines with 87-meter and 93-meter blades are the first of their kind designed for ultra-low wind speed resources. Our smart wind farm software service platform, based on the Internet of Things and cloud computing, revolutionizes the asset management model of renewable energy, reducing operational costs while simultaneously increasing the volume of electricity generated. Our invention of partial pitch direct-drive technology and radar-control technology, employed in our world-advanced four megawatt and six megawatt turbines, cuts 20 percent off the cost of offshore wind power generation, making possible economical, large-scale exploitation of offshore wind resources. When the turbines rolled off the Denmark production line, the country’s environment minister commended them as the future of Europe’s offshore wind power industry.

Over the space of five years Envision has grown into a conglomerate of 500 employees and its sales have skyrocketed to RMB 5 billion. We have achieved exponential growth while the business of many of our rivals has merely ticked over. This constitutes reconfirmation of my belief that smart corporations need smart people. Technical prowess is the key to securing a niche in the commercial market and sustaining growth potential.

Until recent years, Jiangyin had anchored its economy in conventional industries. More than half of local enterprises were involved in manufacturing sectors such as textiles, metallurgy and machinery. Since the arrival of sci & tech professionals the city has boomed through emerging industries like wind power equipment, information technology and bio-pharmacy. Envision is a main contributor to this change, and is fostering a growing wind power industrial chain in the region. Approximately 10 companies in the city are our suppliers. In 2009, the National Torch Plan, an initiative for new and hi-tech industries, founded a wind power equipment base in Jiangyin. The city expects to transform itself from a hub of conventional manufacturing to a team leader in new energy production.

The European Union anticipates 50 percent of renewable energy in its power mix by 2030, and entirely carbon free electricity by mid-century. China is posed to expand the non-fossil share of energy in its primary energy resources to 15 percent by 2020. The two main obstacles are the production costs of renewable energy and its access to the power grid. These are among Envision’s main future priorities.

When I left behind my career abroad and started this business venture in China I had no expectations of a life of comfort and leisure; I instead set my eyes on the future – one of promise and a better life for more fellow Chinese.