Subsidiary of China National Chemical Engineering Co., Ltd. has signed a low-margin photovoltaic EPC contract in Ghana, which tests payment collection capability and comprehensive strength.
According to the announcement of China National Chemical Engineering Co., Ltd., its subsidiary Sedin Engineering has signed a 300MW photovoltaic EPC contract in Ghana.
In the past few months, Guangdong Power Engineering Co., Ltd. of China Energy Engineering Corporation has just started construction of the 50MW Tamale photovoltaic project in the Savannah Region of Ghana; the agreement between JinkoSolar and Nigerian distributors for 100MW Tiger Pro 3 module orders has taken effect; the 35MWh energy storage system provided by Sungrow for the RESPITE solar-storage project in Sierra Leone has been connected to the local power grid.
Four Chinese companies, three West African countries, four completely different market entry approaches. The RMB 2.58 billion contract of China National Chemical Engineering Co., Ltd. is the largest one among them and closest to the traditional centralized EPC model. However, it is facing a market where the government has cut the electricity tariff from 18 cents to 6.5 cents, the arrears of independent power producers (IPPs) are still accumulating, and the gross profit margin of photovoltaic EPC has been compressed to the single-digit range.
Can an engineering company rooted in coal chemical industry and new chemical materials find its own position in the low-margin segment of West Africa’s photovoltaic industry?
By the end of 2025, Ghana’s cumulative installed photovoltaic capacity reached 276.7MW, of which the utility-scale segment only accounted for 183.1MW, lower than the previously set target of 347.5MW. The updated 2026-2030 plan sets the new target for ground-mounted photovoltaic installations at 852MW, which will be equipped with nearly 2GWh of battery energy storage, and the private sector will bear 41% of the utility-scale photovoltaic investment.
The 300MW single contract volume of Sedin exceeds 1.6 times of Ghana’s existing utility-scale photovoltaic installed stock. The figures on the demand side are clear, even a little urgent.
But on the payment side opposite the demand, there is a completely different logic.
Ghana Electricity Company collects electricity bills in Ghanaian Cedi and pays independent power producers in US dollars. Every time the Cedi weakens, the arrears return to the receivables of independent power producers in the form of “re-accumulation”.
Ghana’s Minister of Energy disclosed in October 2026 that the monthly payment ratio to IPPs has increased from about 40% to nearly 100%. The Minister of Finance said that the 2026 budget has allocated 345 million US dollars for energy payments, with the goal of “no longer accumulating new arrears for the first time”. These improvements are real, but they are also political commitments. For an EPC contract with a construction period of two to three years, the sustainability of commitments is more worthy of attention than the intensity of commitments.
The reason why China Export & Credit Insurance Corporation (Sinosure) previously adopted full letter of credit payment in Ghana’s photovoltaic supporting equipment projects, upgrading government credit and commercial credit to bank credit, precisely shows that in this market, the reliability of cash payment is not sufficient to support the risk pricing of a long-term contract.
As the EPC contractor, Sedin does not hold the power station assets and does not directly bear the erosion of the Cedi depreciation on electricity bill income.
However, the release of its progress payment and quality guarantee deposit depends on the rhythm of the owner receiving money from the power purchaser. When the cash flow of the power purchaser is squeezed by the exchange rate, the payment milestones in the EPC contract will be extended first. Low price is not the biggest problem, but the opaque payment path is.
In the first half of 2026, China National Chemical Engineering Co., Ltd. newly signed 72.935 billion yuan of overseas contracts, a year-on-year increase of 76%, and the proportion of overseas revenue rose to 35%; in the first 8 months, it newly signed 79.188 billion yuan of overseas contracts, a year-on-year increase of 57.46%. In emerging tracks such as photovoltaic and energy storage, the company’s statement is to “continue to make efforts”.
The most notable public track record of Sedin in the photovoltaic EPC field is the 150MW DC project in Laos signed in 2025, with a contract value of 528 million yuan, less than half of the scale of the Ghana project.
From 150MW to 300MW, from Southeast Asia to West Africa, from chemical plants to ground-mounted power stations, the span is obvious.
But Sedin is not entering this field from scratch.
Within the China National Chemical Engineering system, Hualu Engineering has long-term accumulation in the engineering of polysilicon materials. The multi-professional interface management, long-cycle equipment procurement rhythm control and overseas on-site construction organization trained by chemical EPC can be reused to a considerable extent in ground-mounted photovoltaic power stations.
The problem is that what is reused is engineering discipline, not profit margin.
The reason why the gross profit margin of chemical EPC is higher than that of ordinary civil engineering is that the process complexity constitutes an entry barrier; the process barrier of photovoltaic EPC is much thinner, and the competitors are much denser.
The average gross profit margin of overseas new energy EPC projects disclosed by Sinoma Energy Conservation is about 8.13%, which is achieved under the background of “fierce competition and price pressure in standardized onshore new energy projects”; the gross profit margin of clean energy engineering business is 9.10%, lower than the industry average of 10.25%.
If the 0.86 yuan/W price of Sedin corresponds to a power station body with compressed boundaries, the price is not as aggressive as it seems on the surface; if it corresponds to a more complete scope of work, the profit margin will be further squeezed.
The RMB 2.58 billion Ghana project accounts for about 2.6% of China National Chemical Engineering’s newly signed overseas contracts in the first three quarters of 2026 in the overall order book, and will not change the profit direction alone.
But it is a verification sample: whether Sedin can turn photovoltaic EPC in Ghana from a one-time “new track breakthrough” into a repeatable business category. If it succeeds, there will be bargaining chips for the second and third projects in West Africa; if it fails, the RMB 2.58 billion will only be a nice-looking announcement.
Looking at the bigger picture, Sedin is not the only Chinese enterprise that has placed bets in West Africa, but its operation mode is clearly different from that of several other peers.
China Energy Engineering Corporation follows the path of “centralized EPC + government framework”, binding sovereign-level or utility-level owners, winning large orders and acting as the general contractor. The payment risk largely depends on the owner’s credit rating and the host country’s fiscal discipline; JinkoSolar takes another path: it does not touch EPC, sells modules through distribution channels, earns profits from the manufacturing end, and bets on whether West Africa’s distributed installed capacity can spread out from the current concentration in South Africa; Sungrow focuses on the equipment and system layer, does not bear the payment risk of the power purchaser, but the financing structure of the project determines whether the equipment payment can be collected smoothly.
Sedin’s position is heavier than Sungrow’s, and lighter than China Energy Engineering’s centralized EPC model.
It does not only earn profits from the manufacturing end like JinkoSolar, nor does it bind the national power company in Senegal to develop a 500MW framework like China Energy Engineering. In a market where electricity tariffs have been renegotiated and payment is being restored but not yet stable, it uses the discipline of chemical engineering to undertake a low-margin photovoltaic general contracting project.
The success or failure of this contract will not define the overall trend of the West African photovoltaic market, but it will give a clear reference: when the unit price of centralized photovoltaic EPC is compressed to 0.86 yuan per watt, can an engineering company that transitions from the chemical industry maintain its gross profit margin around the central level of the engineering business by relying on execution efficiency and contract boundary management.
Sedin’s RMB 2.58 billion contract buys it a ticket to enter the African new energy EPC market.
It has already sat at the table, and the heaviest chip on the table is not the quotation, but the payment calendar of Ghana Electricity Company and who will stand in front of the contractor when the Cedi fluctuates next time.
China National Chemical Engineering’s chemical industry foundation can help Sedin complete the construction of the power station, but whether the payment after completion can be smoothly collected along the path from Cedi to US dollars depends on whether there is a role in the contract structure that can shield the contractor from exchange rate risks.
该文观点仅代表作者本人，36氪平台仅提供信息存储空间服务。
36kr Europe (eu.36kr.com) delivers global business and markets news, data, analysis, and video to the world, dedicated to building value and providing business service for companies’ global expansion.
© 2024 36kr.com. All rights reserved.

source