The price of lithium batteries will fall by a half in the future

Although battery manufacturers are "attacking the city" in the three major application fields of energy storage-large-scale scenery storage, backup power supply for communication base stations, and household storage energy, the cost problem has become an insurmountable gap. "By 2020, there is likely to be no large-scale market expansion, with a focus on technology research and development and technological breakthroughs. "The director of the Institute of Electricians and New Materials of the China Electric Power Science Research Institute of the National Grid has come to believe that.

In line with their views, many industry insiders believe that the energy storage market will develop as soon as costs fall.

In a research paper published last October, Quotai Junan said lithium prices would fall by half in the next 5-10 years. Huatai Securities 'research report also pointed out that the price of lithium iron phosphate batteries has dropped by an average annual rate of more than 10 %, and it has now dropped from 3.3 yuan/WH in 2011 to about 2 yuan/WH, compared to the current 0.55-0 .6 yuan/WH lead-acid battery price, Performance has improved significantly. It expects that the price of lithium communications in 2015 is expected to drop to around 1.5 yuan/WH.

Guotai Junan reported that the target cost of the market-oriented application of energy storage batteries is estimated to be 200 US dollars / kWh(equivalent to about 1,246 yuan / kWh). However, in fact, the price of ordinary lead-acid and modified lead-acid batteries is 1,000 yuan/kw, lead-carbon batteries are 1300 yuan/kw, and the cost of sodium sulfur batteries, lithium batteries, and vanadium sulfur batteries is basically about 4,000 yuan/kw. It is about 3-4 times that of lead-acid batteries, and it is obviously not far from the target cost of market-oriented energy storage batteries.

The cost of another liquid-flow technology, zinc bromine liquid-flow batteries, is also relatively high, although it is more technically mature and more environmentally adaptable. However, Shihaisheng, an analyst at Zhejiang Merchants Securities who has long studied Xinlong Electric, believes that "we expect a single device(50 kWh standard cabinet calculation) to be 300,000 to 350,000 yuan, which is more than 5 times that of lead-acid batteries. "

Industry analysts believe that if distributed energy storage is used as an example if the storage capacity is 1.5 yuan per watt-hour, it can be developed on a large scale. The same is true for electric vehicles. Now it is more than 3 yuan per watt-hour, and it needs to be reduced by half in the future. It is difficult to achieve in the short term, and in the long run, it may also benefit from the upgrading of the technology itself, depending on how much space there is for technological upgrading. There is also a need for policy impetus.

In fact, in terms of the policy, our country currently has only guiding policies, such as the first mention of energy storage in the Renewable Energy Act and Amendment Act. The Outline of the National Plan for the Twelfth Five-Year Plan states that energy storage is a technology that supports the construction of smart power grids, the construction of urban and rural power grids, and the optimization of power grid allocation. The Guidelines for High-tech Industrialization as a Priority for Current Development include power cells and energy storage as key areas of industrialization.

Guotai Junan made assumptions in the research report. In 2015, the cumulative installed capacity of large-scale photovoltaic power stations and wind power reached 20 GW and 100 GW, and in 2020 it reached 50 GW and 200 GW; In 2015 and 2020, the proportion of large photovoltaic power stations and wind farms equipped with energy storage reached 1 % and 3 %. As the current scenery energy storage demonstration project is equipped with lithium iron phosphate batteries, the price of energy storage batteries is measured by the average price of lithium electricity; The price of lithium will drop by half in 5-10 years.

In the field of liquid-flow batteries, it is understood that there are three main types of liquid-flow batteries that are relatively mature on the market: sodium sulfur, vanadium, and zinc-bromine batteries. However, sodium-sulfur battery technology is mastered in Japan, and all vanadium is mainly in Germany. Shihaisheng believes that in the long run, the cost of zinc-bromine batteries will show a rapid decline. Under the national production of components, the cost of zinc-bromine batteries of Xinlong Electric can reach similar levels to ordinary lead-acid batteries..

Shihaisheng believes that "the reduction in costs mainly lies in two aspects. One is the increase in the localization rate and the second is the scale effect. Today, the company produces only a few or a dozen units a month, but in fact, the production capacity can reach 2,000 units per year. Due to the small number of sales, the size of the purchased parts is also very small, and the scale effect cannot be seen at all. In addition, the localization rate of zinc-bromine batteries is still very low, which has a great impact on its core indicator, the energy storage energy conversion rate. It can achieve more than 70 % in the United States, but it can only achieve 50 % in China. ~ 60 %. "

In addition to the cost reduction caused by the scale effect, the price reduction in the upstream segment of the battery is expected to lower the overall cost. It is understood that the upstream materials of lithium batteries mainly include positive poles, negative stages, electrolytes, and diaphragm. The diaphragm is the most critical inner layer component and core material for lithium batteries. As production capacity is released, gross margins will fall rapidly, and it is estimated that by 2014, the margin of the diaphragm should be in a reasonable position of about 25 %. Among other upstream materials, the net interest rate for traditional negative materials has dropped to about 9 %.

Therefore, the economy of energy storage can only be improved when the cost of energy storage batteries is reduced. The spring of energy storage batteries will come.

The page contains the contents of the machine translation.