One of the most expensive lessons in investment history is the story of Charlie Munger missing out on a $5 billion investment opportunity because he was "too lazy".

This unforgettable lesson led the investment master to sum up a far-reaching business wisdom in 1995: true strategic vision lies in the courage to abandon short-term temptations and dare to choose long-term value creation.

Thirty years later, when the global photovoltaic industry was mired in price wars and most companies were fighting tooth and nail for short-term market share, a photovoltaic company called GoodWe took a different approach and spent a decade planning a strategic layout of "source, grid, load, storage, and intelligence" to jointly build a new ecosystem for energy producers and consumers .

Behind this is the "way of making choices" that Huang Min and Munger share .

"Dare to Give Up": Strategic Determination to Stick to One's Duties

Huang Min is arguably the most low-key figure in the industry. To this day, looking through online reports, Sobi Photovoltaic Network only has one interview with Huang Min: " Gentleman Huang Min ," published on January 15, 2019 .

At the time, he believed that if he made a good product and provided excellent service, there would be a market. Before designing the product, he gave his R&D department a requirement: after five or ten years, this machine would still be as good as new after dusting it off.

At that time, they used aluminum-magnesium alloy to replace iron galvanized plates, selected the industry's top components, strictly implemented redundant design, achieved the highest possible level of protection, did a good job of industrial design in appearance, and specially designed a more reasonable layout inside the chassis. After three years of being "poor" and "stupid", GoodWe finally achieved profitability.

Six years later, Huang Min remains committed to prioritizing stability in product quality control , focusing on market pain points, eschewing low-cost shortcuts, and consistently prioritizing in-depth product refinement and iterative optimization. The company's safe, reliable, efficient, and intelligent product features continue to earn customer trust. Last year, the company launched the 50kW and 60kW series of commercial and industrial photovoltaic inverters , the industry 's first ultra-low-noise inverters. These inverters are particularly suitable for use in crowded industrial and commercial environments like schools, hospitals, shopping malls, and government agencies, becoming a hit in the market. The company is currently pursuing the AAA standard for quietness, safety, and security, which is rewriting the product landscape. Beyond inverters, the company also maintains stringent requirements in the photovoltaic building materials sector, a field it has expanded into in recent years .

Recently, the first cross-provincial courtyard house in China , the Water Village Living Room Fangting Water Courtyard in the Yangtze River Delta Ecological Green Integrated Development Demonstration Zone, was officially completed. GoodWe's "Sunrise" series photovoltaic tiles were selected for key locations such as the roof and bridges. The application of a BIPV integrated photovoltaic system and other energy-saving technologies has resulted in an overall energy saving rate of 82%, far exceeding the national standard of 72%, making it a "Chinese benchmark" for near-zero-carbon buildings.

This determination to "dare to give up" comes from the "duty gene" that Huang Min gave to GoodWe.

In communicating with the heads of GoodWe's various business units, I clearly sensed that they not only embrace sincerity but also adhere to a self-responsibility culture, a stark contrast to the often bombastic atmosphere of some companies . They also openly discuss the competitive advantages of competitors. Their choices are based on frequent, in-depth research and analysis, along with thorough discussions and communication with management, eliminating many unrealistic and aggressive decisions.

GoodWe people have been well aware for many years that earning money in the photovoltaic industry is a hard-earned business, and the failure of one or two flagship products may lead to a complete loss.

"Dare to choose" comes from a keen insight into the needs of the times

1. GoodWe's "giving up" has always been for the purpose of better "gaining" .

"Sticking to its responsibilities" does not mean that GoodWe will not explore or dare to make new arrangements . On the contrary, for the "long track" that it is optimistic about, GoodWe will ensure that it gathers resources, works hard and invests in the long term.

At the end of last year, the GoodWe Smart Energy Building, which cost 750 million yuan, was unveiled and put into use.

This 89.8-meter-tall office building, with 19 floors above ground and two underground, utilizes a wide range of GoodWe BIPV building materials, demonstrating product and microgrid integration in real-world applications. These products include photovoltaic curtain walls, courtyard photovoltaic tiles, photovoltaic car ramps, sun sheds, and photovoltaic carports. These photovoltaic building materials effectively connect renewable electricity to the load through 20 GoodWe inverters in 11 different power ranges. The photovoltaic installation area spans 6,570.858 square meters, with a total installed capacity of 698.061 kW and a total annual photovoltaic power generation of 496,500 kWh.

At the unveiling ceremony, Huang Min shared GoodWe's insights into the photovoltaic industry.

He believes the photovoltaic industry has officially entered a new 2.0 era, an era of building a new energy network centered on distributed energy, energy storage, electric vehicles, charging stations, bi-integrated photovoltaic (BIPV), flexible direct current (DC), heat pump applications, and smart energy. This era is characterized by the comprehensive electronicization of existing energy systems and the gradual formation of an energy internet system through the construction of a multi-layered energy internet and microgrids.

It is precisely based on this judgment of future trends and insight into the times that GoodWe pays more attention to "coupling thinking" and "technological compounding" in the logic of its new layout .

The so-called "coupled thinking" requires that technology research and development address diverse needs as much as possible. Over the past decade, GoodWe has leveraged its core power electronics technology and, from a "source, grid, load, storage, and intelligence" perspective, has proactively invested in and deployed software and hardware products such as inverters, photovoltaic building materials, energy storage systems, charging stations, air-source heat pumps, and the Smart Energy WE platform. This has enabled the development of residential and commercial photovoltaic and energy storage projects, as well as EPC turnkey capabilities.

In 2024, the company's new 159 patent applications included a high proportion of invention patents. Its technology layout deeply covered cutting-edge fields such as grid-type energy storage systems and AI energy prediction algorithms, building a multi-level technological moat.

"Technological compounding" focuses on investing in technologies with compounding returns, prioritizing medium- and long-term gains, which yield the highest returns. GoodWe, for example , has built a gigafactory with an annual production capacity of 300,000 air-source heat pumps. It plans to integrate photovoltaic hydrogen production, air-source heating, and energy storage systems , with a focus on penetrating the European market .

"GoodWe should not just be a supplier of photovoltaic inverter equipment, but a supplier of system solutions," said Huang Min in 2016.

"User Brain" creates differentiated value

What is certain is that whether it is "daring to give up" or "daring to choose" , the core premise is to accurately judge the direction of the track - just like a plane flying from Los Angeles to New York, if the pilot only deviates the course by 3 degrees, the final landing point will be as far away as Washington.

So, how does GoodWe ensure the correctness of its track selection over the long term? How does it achieve systematic innovation along the long road, thereby creating "ultimate products" and "ultimate experiences"? GoodWe 's answer is "user-centricity . "

"User-oriented" is a word that every company has mentioned. GoodWe puts forward it as its core competitiveness, which has its own differentiated and unique value.

"We need to figure out who our target users are and what their usage scenarios are. We need to achieve the gold standard in all kinds of usage and find out where the standards for good and bad lie," said Wang Yingge .

For example, the noise generated by inverters during operation is becoming a major concern for users. Traditional inverters typically generate over 60 decibels, equivalent to the volume of a normal conversation. Indoors or in close proximity, the constant noise can significantly disrupt users' lives and work.

After recognizing this pain point, GoodWe quickly launched a research and development effort. Through in-depth optimization of the inverter's core components, internal structure, cooling system, electromagnetic design, and multiple technological iterations, GoodWe launched the industry's first ultra-low-noise 50kW and 60kW inverters . These have become a powerful tool for industrial and commercial photovoltaics and have been well-received by customers. Their "buy an inverter and get a free new energy vehicle" promotion was particularly popular, with 10 spare Ideal L9s and Ledao L60s given away . The latest generation of SDT G4 series inverters successfully reduces operating noise to below 45 decibels, comparable to the noise level of a household refrigerator.

For commercial and industrial users, GoodWe offers its flagship products: a 125kW/261kWh energy storage system, as well as DC-coupled 30kW/60kWh and 50kW/100kWh solar-storage cabinets. For the residential market, although the domestic market has yet to fully tap into its potential, GoodWe has already made early preparations and developed products to meet diverse needs. In particular, the ESUniq series of energy storage inverters and low-voltage battery systems are being launched for regions with weak or even no grid access, such as Asia, Africa, and Latin America.

In the BIPV field, GoodWe has launched a new original green electricity solution, which deeply integrates cutting-edge technologies in multiple fields such as photovoltaics, energy storage, and energy management, allowing every household to significantly reduce electricity bills, not worry about power outages, and upgrade from passive electricity consumers to active energy producers.

Furthermore, the new policy has created new opportunities for integrating virtual power plant technology with distributed energy. Virtual power plants require the aggregation of diverse energy sources for trading, and the inclusion of new energy in market transactions provides the necessary conditions for virtual power plants to become a reality. GoodWe has already actively engaged in the virtual power plant sector, building a prototype virtual power plant based on its "Smart Energy WE Platform." This allows for digital and intelligent management of each power station, supporting carbon footprint monitoring and future carbon trading.

" Although GoodWe's various business segments are now at different stages of development, they have already formed unique competitive advantages. Just like the grandfather in the cartoon, each of the gourd babies he planted has taken root and grown in its respective field, and now has the ability to independently cope with market competition , " Wang Yingge said humorously.

Ten years of hard work go into sharpening a sword. Driven by GoodWe's own strategic adjustments and the industry's rush to install solar panels, GoodWe sold approximately 400,000 inverters in the first half of the year, ranking first in domestic residential photovoltaic inverter sales and breaking the single-quarter sales record for Q1. The photovoltaic building materials business saw significant year-on-year growth, topping the charts in niche products and solutions like lightweight photovoltaics and rising sun tiles. The smart energy business, under the new electricity market trading policy, has become increasingly valuable. With widespread market acceptance, power generation and load connections have surged. Yude and GoodHeat have also achieved impressive results. GoodWe has also secured 72 new patent authorizations, a 20% increase over the same period last year.

In the future, whether GoodWe’s latest layout can bring new value to the industry remains to be seen.