With the rapid development of China's new energy vehicles, the market demand for power batteries has soared in the past two years, ushering in a "golden age". However, while prospering, some new problems have been exposed. How to promote the healthy development of the lithium battery industry?

 

    Origin of lithium battery market development

 

Since the world's first commercial lithium-ion battery was brought to market by Sony Japan in 1991, the development of the lithium-ion battery industry has reached its 25th year. After more than 20 years of development, the lithium-ion battery market has grown from scratch, surpassing other secondary batteries such as nickel-cadmium batteries and nickel-metal hydride batteries, and has developed into the second largest secondary battery product after lead-acid batteries. Statistics released by AvicenneEnergy, a well-known European industry research institute, show that from 1990 to 2012, the lithium-ion battery market size rapidly developed from 0.5 million kWh (still in the trial application stage in 1990) to 3.233 million 47 thousand kWh (Note: with domestic statistics The data are different, mainly because the agency does not know much about China), with an average compound growth rate of 49%, second only to the 326 million kWh of lead-acid batteries. According to the agency's data, the average annual compound growth rate of the lithium-ion battery market in the 10 years before 2000 was as high as 70.8%, and in the next 10 years it was 27.1%.

 

 

Lithium-ion batteries have been capturing market share of other secondary batteries since the day they were born, while also creating new market demand. Lithium-ion batteries first entered the consumer electronics market such as mobile phones, digital cameras, and notebooks. It took several years to quickly dominate the world, while nickel-cadmium batteries and nickel-hydrogen batteries quickly withdrew from this market. In the current market for the largest use of nickel-cadmium batteries, lithium-ion batteries in 2014 surpassed nickel-cadmium batteries with a market share of 60%, and the market share is still expanding. With the increasing awareness of energy saving and emission reduction in China, vehicles such as electric two-wheeled and three-wheeled vehicles, UPS power supplies and other fields, the vehicle startup market accounted for about 70%. In these areas, lithium-ion batteries have begun to erode the market share of lead-acid batteries.

 

Development enters golden period quickly

 

In 2015, China's output of new energy vehicles reached 379,000 units, and the overall shipment of power batteries reached 15.7 billion watt-hours, a year-on-year increase of more than three times. The explosive demand for power batteries has been extended to the positive electrode, negative electrode and separator, electrolyte and other related materials industries and the upstream lithium ore resource industry. The market supply and demand effect has also begun to emerge. As an important raw material for lithium-ion batteries, the price of lithium carbonate has risen from 43,000 yuan per ton in 2015 to 160,000 yuan per ton in May this year.

 

 

爆发 The explosive demand for power batteries appeared, and the market supply was “tight” for a time. Many domestic lithium battery manufacturers have even caused new energy vehicle manufacturers to wait in line. In the face of hot market conditions, some companies have also increased their production capacity to meet market demand. Tan Libin, vice president of marketing of Ningde Times New Energy Technology Co., Ltd., told reporters that the company's planned production capacity this year is double that of last year.

 

 

"The current investment in power batteries is still in the enhancement stage." Said Xiao Chengwei, senior engineer of the 18th Institute of China Electronics Technology Group Corporation. In 2015, the supporting battery watt-hours were about 16 billion watt-hours, and the output value exceeded 40 billion yuan. Capital investment has exceeded 100 billion yuan.

 

 

According to the strategic goal set by "Made in China 2025", by 2020, China's annual sales of new energy vehicles will exceed 1 million. By 2025, the annual sales volume of new energy vehicles synchronized with the international advanced level will reach 3 million. At the same time, by 2020, key systems such as power batteries will reach international advanced levels, with a domestic market share of 80%, and batch exports by 2025.

 

 

It is understood that the domestic lithium power industry has initially formed four major industrial areas in the Pearl River Delta, Yangtze River Delta, Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei and Central Plains regions. And Qinghai, where lithium reserves account for 80% of the country, is trying to build another lithium industry base with national influence, relying on rich lithium resources to share a share in the lithium battery market.

 

The short board still needs to be completed

 

背后 Behind the rapid growth of the lithium battery industry, some problems have gradually emerged. In recent years, the government has introduced various forms of policies to promote the rapid start and development of electric vehicles and related industries, and achieved certain results. However, some experts said that the performance of the electric vehicle market under government subsidies did not reflect the true situation of the market. This strong stimulus could also easily lead to blind investment by enterprises and "quantity and lightness" of products.

 

 

清 Chen Qingtai, chairman of the China Electric Vehicles Hundred Talents Association, said that under the promotion of favorable policies, many auto companies are busy ramping up production, rushing to battery companies to push for goods, and even reduce quality requirements for timely delivery. Battery component companies are under tremendous delivery pressure. Some of them have lowered quality standards, relaxed management, and slowed down the pace of technology research and development in order to ensure supply. This phenomenon is very dangerous and worrying.

 

 

Thanks to the strong market demand, although China's lithium battery industry has ranked among the world's top camps, it does not mean that there is no gap with the top companies in Korea and Japan. For example, there is still a large gap in terms of product consistency. A person in charge of a lithium battery company told reporters that at present the product failure rate of the Korean and Japanese giants has been reduced to 3ppm, that is, only 3 of the 1 million cells produced are unqualified; and the cell products of Chinese companies are qualified The rate has not yet reached this level.

At the same time, the industry still has "small and scattered" problems. Due to the rapid expansion of the market, the low barriers to entry to the industry, and the large number of small and medium-sized companies with low R & D skills entering the lithium battery industry, these companies have no advantage in technological innovation and profitability.

 

 

In addition, for the lithium battery industry, how to improve the battery recycling process and reduce environmental pollution is also an important factor to ensure the sustainable development of the industry. Some experts predict that by 2020, the number of used lithium batteries worldwide will be about 25 billion. If the recycling process is not perfect, it will cause huge pollution and waste of resources. However, the high cost of recycling used power batteries and the low level of enterprise recycling are the pain points of the domestic lithium battery industry and one of the major gaps with the lithium battery industry in developed countries.

 

Multi-pronged approach to close the gap

 

Chen Qingtai said that in order to build an environmentally friendly, healthy and sustainable lithium battery industry chain, we must first moderately reduce the growth rate of the lithium battery industry, increase research and development investment, make great efforts to focus on quality, and practically solve the exposed problems. Welcome the outbreak of the electric vehicle industry.

 

 

How to grasp the research direction of technology and shorten the gap with top foreign companies? Guo Shengchang, director of the Technology Research Institute of AVIC Lithium Battery (Luoyang) Co., Ltd. believes that apart from manufacturing processes and other links, the greater gap between domestic and international top technologies lies in basic industries. There is a gap between top foreign technology and equipment. Therefore, countries and enterprises should pay more attention to the research on basic industries and fundamentally reduce the gap between us and the world's top technology. "

 

 

At the same time, the government must guide and promote industry development and change through industrial policies. Relevant experts believe that although the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology has released four batches of enterprise catalogs that meet the "standard conditions for the automotive power storage battery industry", 57 battery companies have entered the directory. If the entry standards can be increased, it will help eliminate low-end production capacity, increase market concentration, and optimize the industrial structure.

 

 

Regarding the recycling of power batteries, Minister of Science and Technology Wan Gang once said that power batteries, especially lithium-ion power batteries, may not be scrapped immediately after recycling, and can be used in steps. There are also many companies that see the vast space of the ladder utilization market and try to enter it. However, the lack of standards has seriously restricted the enthusiasm of enterprises to enter. Yang Xulai, deputy dean of the Engineering Research Institute of Hefei Guoxuan High-tech Power Energy Co., Ltd., said that if a series of standard issues such as battery use are not solved, there is no way to talk about step utilization. Therefore, strengthening research on testing and evaluation techniques and standards for the quality, performance identification, and classification of retired batteries, and formulating relevant standards are vital to promoting the use of echelons.