He Ye: Innovation-Driven, Quality and Efficiency Improvement—Empowering High-Quality Development of Road Lighting with New Quality Productive Forces

Vice President of the China National Light Industry Council

Chairman of the China Association of Lighting Industry

Chairman of the Third National Technical Committee on Lighting Appliance Standardization (SAC/TC 224)

He Ye

Distinguished leaders, experts, scholars, representatives from municipal administration departments and enterprises, and friends:

Good morning, everyone! It is a pleasure to gather with you in Suzhou during this beautiful season of warm spring breezes and vibrant life, to jointly open the "19th China Road Lighting Forum". On behalf of the organizer, the China Association of Lighting Industry (CALI), I would like to extend a warm welcome to all leaders and guests attending this forum! I would also like to take this opportunity to express my sincere gratitude and respect to all leaders, experts, municipal management representatives, and entrepreneur friends who have long cared for and supported the development of China's road lighting industry and the work of the association.

The China Road Lighting Forum has been successfully held for eighteen sessions. The forum has played a positive role in promoting technological progress, brand building, and market expansion in the industry, constructing an effective communication and cooperation platform covering the entire supply chain of government, industry, academia, research, and application for the road lighting industry, and laying a good foundation for the healthy and sustainable development of the road lighting industry. This forum takes place just after the conclusion of the "Two Sessions". This year's Government Work Report proposes "vigorously promoting the construction of a modern industrial system and accelerating the development of new quality productive forces" as the primary task, establishing confidence, pointing out the direction, and clarifying the path for the start of China's economy. With the theme "Illuminating Smart Cities, Assisting Green Development", this forum invites representatives from municipal administration departments, research and design institutions, and leading backbone enterprises in the road lighting supply chain to gather together, aiming to pool wisdom, plan at a high level, explore new quality productive forces in the road lighting industry, and embark on a new journey of development for the road lighting industry.

After a century of transformation, and especially the rapid development over the past 40+ years of reform and opening-up, China's lighting industry has formed an industrial scale with annual sales of RMB 680 billion and exports reaching USD 65 billion. Products are exported to more than 220 countries and regions worldwide, accounting for over 60% of the global market share. It serves as the global manufacturing center and supply chain hub for the lighting industry, possessing significant international competitiveness. As an important niche segment of the lighting industry, road lighting has achieved substantial development and remarkable achievements over the years, relying on China's infrastructure construction and rapid urbanization process.

First, technological progress has yielded significant results, meeting growing market demand. According to data from the National Bureau of Statistics, China's road length reached 552,000 km in 2022, and the average growth rate of urban road lighting fixtures from 2018 to 2022 was 5.3%. It is estimated that the number of street lights under the jurisdiction of local municipal management departments nationwide is close to 40 million sets. By continuously increasing R&D intensity and carrying out product, process, and material innovations, enterprises have further improved the luminous efficacy of street lights. The proportion of LED street lights approaches 30%, while luminance and light color have been optimized, enhancing the quality of urban lighting. Single-lamp control technology is more widely applied, improving the personalization and dynamics of lighting. It not only enables energy saving dimming and full lifecycle management of street lights but also significantly improves the operation and maintenance efficiency of urban lighting facilities. Furthermore, the integration of street lights with new energy technologies, such as energy storage street lights and photovoltaic street lights entering the market, reflects the lighting industry's innovative achievements in rapidly adapting to changes in the energy structure. Lighting companies are also actively applying new materials and processes; through cooperation with the steel industry, they promote the application of weathering steel, which has obvious advantages in environmental protection, cost, and quality, in street light projects. These innovative measures will further promote China's urban lighting industry to implement national strategies and achieve low-carbon, energy-saving, and sustainable development.

Second, the level of integration, digitalization, and intelligence has further improved, providing strong support for smart city construction. Smart poles integrating lighting, monitoring, communication, and other functions are increasingly widely used. In addition to further enhancing energy-saving effects, they serve as an excellent entry point for urban big data collection, providing effective means to improve the quality and efficiency of public services, and are one of the most important infrastructures supporting future smart city construction. In recent years, many smart streetlight projects have been carried out across the country. According to real-time online data from pole towers, by the end of February this year, more than 1,100 smart streetlight projects had been launched nationwide, with over 800 projects completed, nearly 160,000 sets of smart streetlights installed, more than 200 projects under construction, and over 150,000 sets under construction.

Third, the leading role of industry龙头企业 (leading enterprises) is evident. After years of development, China's road lighting industry has initially formed a group of head enterprises, such as Unilumin, OPPLE, Longteng Lighting, and Huapu Yongming, that adhere to an innovation-driven, quality-and-efficiency-oriented development path. OPPLE's innovative adhesive solar film application solution and pilot project were selected as typical cases of refined urban management by the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development and included in the case library of the "Shanghai Manual: Guide to Sustainable Urban Development in the 21st Century" in 2023. The urban landscape lighting project in Dalian, jointly implemented by Longteng Lighting and Beijing Dongliang International, achieved intelligent lighting control by combining 5G technology and organic integration with green electricity, becoming a demonstration case for the 2023 National Energy Conservation Publicity Week. At the recently concluded Light + Building in Frankfurt earlier this month, almost all leading enterprises in China's road lighting supply chain exhibited, showcasing the overall brand image and latest technical products of Chinese road lighting, becoming a unique highlight of the Frankfurt exhibition. For instance, Unilumin displayed solar street lights and smart poles using "key technologies for high luminous efficacy and long-life lighting," as well as the Marlin street light "tool-free detachable" solution, which was eye-catching. Huapu Yongming released its latest achievement combining LED street lights with energy storage equipment at the exhibition. Manufacturers of drivers and control systems in the supply chain, such as Inventronics, Moso, Soosen, Donlim, Fangda Zhikong, and Nanjing Likong, also attracted significant attention at the exhibition. Their products are gradually replacing imports and have gained a certain market share in the international market.

While acknowledging these achievements, it cannot be denied that the industry still faces problems such as low concentration, weak innovation capability, lack of standards in key areas, and poor management mechanisms that restrict the overall improvement of quality and efficiency. Especially against the backdrop of insufficient momentum for global economic growth, an unstable foundation for China's sustained economic recovery, blockages in the domestic large cycle, and disruptions in the international cycle, weakened industry demand and intensified corporate competition mean that industry development will face more severe challenges. However, historical experience proves that every challenge is an opportunity for well-prepared outstanding enterprises to stand out and for industry optimization and transformation. We must strengthen our confidence, cultivate new quality productive forces in the industry, and seize the new opportunities for the transformation and upgrading of the road lighting industry.

The first opportunity is the strong support from national policies. In 2022, the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development and the National Development and Reform Commission released the "Implementation Plan for Carbon Peaking in the Field of Urban and Rural Construction," proposing that by the end of 2030, the share of high-efficiency energy-saving luminaires such as LED will exceed 80%, and more than 30% of cities will have built digital lighting systems; the "14th Five-Year Plan for National Urban Infrastructure Construction" proposes to focus on green lighting and smart streetlights, actively develop green lighting, and accelerate the energy-saving renovation of urban lighting; in 2023, nine departments including the National Development and Reform Commission, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, the Ministry of Finance, and the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development issued the "Guiding Opinions on Coordinating Energy Saving and Carbon Reduction and Recycling to Accelerate the Renewal and Renovation of Products and Equipment in Key Areas," focusing initially on six categories of products and equipment including lighting and home appliances, and concurrently issued the "Implementation Guidelines for the Renewal, Renovation, and Recycling of Lighting Equipment (2023 Edition)," further detailing tasks and measures,着力 promoting advanced technologies for energy saving and carbon reduction, implementing the renewal and renovation of lighting equipment, standardizing the recycling and disposal of waste lighting equipment, and clarifying work goals such that by 2025, after the implementation of lighting equipment renewal and renovation, annual electricity savings will be approximately 100 billion kWh, and annual CO2 emissions reduction will be approximately 58 million tons. It is understood that China's home appliance industry accounts for about 19% of the national total electricity consumption, while the lighting electrical industry accounts for about 14%, together accounting for more than one-third of the total social electricity consumption; in early March, the State Council issued the "Action Plan for Promoting Large-Scale Equipment Renewal and Consumer Goods Trade-In," proposing to accelerate equipment renewal in the fields of construction and municipal infrastructure, and accelerate the renovation of security equipment such as video surveillance in key public areas and roads. The plan involves the renewal of many energy-saving and carbon-reducing equipments, and the renewal process must comply with energy-saving and carbon-reducing standards, etc. These policy measures focus on the two key aspects of investment and consumption, taking into account both current needs and long-term development, providing important guidance and significant opportunities for industry development, which everyone should pay close attention to.

The second opportunity is the vast market space. Among the nearly 40 million street lights currently in use on 550,000 kilometers of urban roads nationwide, the mainstream products are still High-pressure sodium lamp (HPS), with LED lighting products accounting for less than 30%. With the implementation of the dual-carbon policy, the replacement of the existing street light market will inevitably bring opportunities for industry development; at the same time, urbanization is one of the core drivers of China's modernization, and the new-type urbanization promoted by the state at the current stage also provides new development space for Road lighting, especially solar lighting; and as an important component of smart cities, Street light is not only a necessary node for tangible road infrastructure construction, but also an important node for intangible smart city infrastructure construction such as 5G communication, and even the peripheral neurons of new smart city infrastructure. Therefore, supported by relevant policies, the future growth space for outdoor lighting, especially the Smart streetlight / Smart pole industry, is huge.

Taking this opportunity, I would like to put forward three suggestions and hopes to the Conference:

First, I hope that enterprises across the entire Road lighting supply chain, especially leading backbone enterprises, will maintain strategic determination, unswervingly follow the path of innovation-driven development, continuously build core competitiveness, and increase R&D investment around the industrial technology development trends of "intelligent, green, and healthy", promoting the high-end, intelligent, and green development of the industry. We must seize the opportunity of the national unified large market, and on the basis of continuously optimizing market structure and profit models, strategically layout the global market to achieve dual circulation. We should leverage the platform of SAC/TC 224 to play the leading role of standards and improve the quality and efficiency in the field of Road lighting. We should take advantage of the favorable timing of industry structural adjustment to make enterprises bigger and stronger through joint ventures, cooperation, mergers, and acquisitions. Strive to have 6-8 leading enterprises with annual sales exceeding 3 billion yuan and a batch of specialized, refined, distinctive, and innovative enterprises in the Road lighting industry by the end of the "15th Five-Year Plan", achieving benign development of the entire supply chain.

Second, I hope that the Smart streetlight / Smart pole Special Committee will further stimulate organizational vitality, improve working mechanisms, strengthen industry research and analysis, compile industry development reports, and provide a basis for enterprise development and government decision-making. We should further improve the industry standard system, accelerate the formulation and revision of standards for lighting equipment in key application places, and provide standard support for promoting renewal and renovation. We should improve the construction of the Smart streetlight / Smart pole standard system, guided by the large-scale construction of Smart streetlight / Smart pole, formulate cross-disciplinary and cross-industry design, technology, and test acceptance standards for Smart streetlight / Smart pole, and form relatively unified pole componentization, functional modularization, interface compatibility, and cost-optimal Smart streetlight / Smart pole Solution through standardization. For areas urgently needed by the market and with industry blanks, we should solve the problems of mismatched market resources and disorderly market competition through group standards and standard leaders, enhancing industry discourse power. We should further innovate and expand, serving enterprises, governments, and society through more pragmatic and effective work platforms, and enhancing the influence of the Special Committee.

Thirdly, it is hoped that government departments such as municipal road management will establish cross-departmental coordination bodies and mechanisms to integrate the management and operational needs of various departments, incorporate smart streetlights into the overall urban development layout, and uniformly promote the planning, construction, and operation of "Smart Cities". Increase investment in lighting facility construction, enhance the upgrading and renovation of existing lighting facilities, correctly guide social capital to participate in the construction, energy-saving renovation, and operation of urban lighting facilities, actively implement policy documents such as the "Action Plan for Promoting Large-scale Equipment Renewal and Consumer Goods Trade-in", and promote the replacement of street light products with low energy efficiency and poor light quality. At the same time, as user representatives of road luminaires, we hope to timely share the latest needs, existing problems, and improvement suggestions in urban road lighting operation and management with the industry, actively participate in road lighting standardization work, formulate more scientific and advanced procurement bidding documents and work processes, encourage the adoption of products with new solutions, technologies, and materials, strictly control quality, and achieve survival of the fittest. Establish an urban data management system, break down data silos of smart streetlights, accelerate data sharing,挖掘 data value, and through the collection, storage, processing, and calculation of urban lighting data, establish an ecological integration covering hardware, software, mechanisms, and security, providing data services for the government, industry, and public.

Distinguished delegates, spring is at its best, and it is the right time to strive forward with determination! Let us be guided by Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era, further deeply comprehend General Secretary Xi Jinping's incisive exposition on developing new quality productive forces, earnestly implement the relevant work measures deployed in the Government Work Report, with a high sense of industrial responsibility and mission, act proactively, innovate and develop, empower the high-quality development of road lighting with new quality productive forces, and welcome a brighter future for the lighting industry.

Finally, I wish this forum a complete success! I wish all leaders, guests, and friends smooth work, good health, and all the best!