Guosheng Securities: The new national standard for refrigerator energy efficiency has been officially released, and the vacuum insulation board industry is about to see a surge in volume

According to the Zhitong Finance APP, Guosen Securities released a research report stating that the new national standard for household refrigerators will officially be implemented on June 1, 2026. This revision significantly raises energy efficiency requirements and adds parameters such as volume ratio, which is expected to significantly increase the penetration rate of vacuum insulation panels in high-end refrigerators. Based on calculations, for every 5 percentage point increase in the penetration rate of new level 1 refrigerators, there will be an additional demand for 4.29 million square meters of vacuum insulation panels, indicating considerable growth potential in the industry. Key listed companies related to vacuum insulation panels include FUJIAN SUPERTECH ADVANCED MATERIAL (688398.SH) and ZAISHENG TECHNOLOGY (603601.SH).

The main points of Guosen Securities are as follows:

The new national standard for household refrigerators will be released on May 30, 2025, and officially implemented on June 1, 2026.

In the past, China's refrigerator energy efficiency standards have been revised approximately every five years. The current energy efficiency standard was released in 2015 and has been in effect for nearly nine years, which is clearly disconnected from the current development status of the refrigerator industry and international advanced standards. Therefore, the revision of this energy efficiency standard is highly necessary.

Compared to the old national standard, the major changes in the new national standard can be summarized in three aspects: 1) While maintaining the original five-level energy efficiency classification, the corresponding energy efficiency requirements (such as power consumption) have been significantly raised; level 1 refrigerators under the old standard basically correspond to level 4 under the new standard; 2) While specifying energy consumption indicators, the requirements for volume ratio-related parameters have been strengthened, further weakening the advantages of traditional foaming materials (as traditional materials mainly respond to upgraded energy efficiency requirements by increasing the thickness of the foaming layer and sacrificing the effective usable space of the refrigerator); 3) New concepts such as deep freezing compartments have been added, expanding the freezing temperature of household refrigerators from the old standard of -18°C to -30 to -40°C, further increasing the demand for more efficient insulation materials.

The upgrade of refrigerator standards presents significant development opportunities for the vacuum insulation panel industry.

Energy-saving measures for refrigerators mainly fall into three categories: refrigeration technology, control technology, and insulation technology. Among these, improving compressors and using efficient new insulation materials are currently the two most effective ways for refrigerator companies to enhance energy efficiency. In the face of increasingly stringent energy efficiency standard policies, we believe that the technical implementation difficulty of traditional energy-saving methods, including compressors, may gradually increase, leading to a steeper cost curve, while the cost-effectiveness of vacuum insulation panels, previously considered expensive, continues to stand out.

Regarding the new national standard, considering the significant extent of this round of energy efficiency revisions, along with the upgrades in volume ratio indicators and freezing temperature range requirements, we expect that the usage ratio of vacuum insulation panels in at least new level 1 refrigerators is likely to increase significantly. Referring to the product iteration path after the last round of energy efficiency revisions, the market penetration rate of old standard level 1 refrigerators gradually increased from an initial 5% to 90%. Similarly, we speculate that after the official implementation of this new energy efficiency standard, the sales proportion of new level 1 refrigerators is also expected to show a significant upward trend, and correspondingly, the vacuum insulation panel market is likely to continue to expand rapidly. According to our calculations, when the penetration rate of new level 1 refrigerators reaches 5%, 10%, 20%, 50%, and 80%, the corresponding demand for vacuum insulation panels will be 4.29 million square meters, 9.165 million square meters, 18.43 million square meters, 46.93 million square meters, and 75.43 million square meters, respectively. Compared to the current actual usage of over 3 million square meters in China (conservatively estimated at a 3% penetration rate), the potential incremental space is extremely considerable Risk Warning: The risk of the penetration rate of new level 1 energy-efficient refrigerators not meeting expectations; the risk of alternative materials or technologies; the risk of intensified market competition; the risk of assumptions and calculation errors; the risk of outdated data