A couple of weeks ago, one of our directors, Jon, participated in a huge milestone when he was part of a groundbreaking consortium of installers who travelled to Huawei’s first Smart PV Global Installer Summit in Dongguan, China. Over a five day trip, he benefited from not only amazing hospitality of his Chinese hosts, but also an eye-opening experience of the robust productivity of China as a nation, in contrast to the bureaucracy-fighting of the Red Tape we do here in the UK. Here, he details the good, the bad and the ugly (3am nightclub Jon) of his trip…
Day 1
The trip started with a Smart PV showcase at Huawei HQ before a train tour around Xiliubeipo village of six different areas, all breathtakingly stunning and architectural masterpieces in their own rights. We experienced a disassembly demonstration of new products, including a mega 150kW inverter and a 215kWh battery.
Later that night, we enjoyed a late afternoon exclusive factory tour – anti-static hats and coats were needed – before an exquisite meal at a Turkish restaurant located in the Huawei Research and Development facility. Day one had got off to an impressive start, both work-wise and hospitality-wise!
Day 2
You haven’t been in a library until you’ve been in the library at the Ox Horn Campus in Dongguan – what an incredible building that literally takes your breath away, and trust me, it wasn’t silent! On this day, we benefited from lots of presentations, product information and installers from around the world at the cutting edge of solar technology. The Huawei products were seriously impressive, and from a UK perspective, we haven’t yet experienced their reach and quality here due to the Huawei scandal of 2020 where the UK Government placed a ban on Huawei supplying kit for Britain’s 5G mobile networks.
Obviously it’s not all work, and most definitely play, so in the evening we attended the Gala Dinner. Wow. Tomahawk steaks cooked before our eyes, light and drone shows, unlimited food and drink – is it any wonder the night ended in a local town and police escort after our installer party got a bit too loud with the locals in the early hours?!
Day 3
Unsurprisingly, the third day I did not rise from the ashes, rather staggered out of my hotel room, jaded and tired. After a strong coffee, we enjoyed more product information at the lecture hall before travelling back to Shenzen. We stopped via Huawei’s EV/PV/battery inner city facility (which of course was built in an incredible ninety days – another example of the superb Chinese productivity).
We then enjoyed tours around the Davidson Exhibition Hall, the Huawei flagship store (think Apple Store on steroids), and the Watt Store, which is a massive demo centre in the basement of one of the Huawei buildings. After authentic Peking duck for dinner, we closed the day off with drinks underneath the Ping An Finance Centre, the 5th tallest building in China at an impressive 599.1m tall.
Day 4
How I got up for Day 4 is still quite the mystery, as I took ‘not all work, some play’ very seriously last night, and drinks definitely did not stay just underneath Ping An, and rather escalated. Today, I got to experience the top of the building that I spent last night drinking underneath, but the view from the 550m summit matched the inside of my head: cloudy.
Later that day, we travelled into Shenzen, where the roads are so unbelievably quiet due to the sheer number of electric vehicles, up to 90% of the total vehicles on the road are EVs. We had enough time to visit a local electronics market which had some ridiculously cheap smart watches, headphones and drones for sale – another suitcase was also purchased for the return trip!
Day 5
By now, we had departed to Hong Kong to round off our business (hic) trip for a day of leisure before flying home. After getting the Star ferry across to Kowloon to visit the ladies market and sneaker street, we then headed up Victoria Peak for a chilled beer (of course, rude not to) at the “authentic” Bubba Gump restaurant at the top, what a view of HK!! A great way to end an unbelievable trip, such a shame it was a 14 hour flight back!
