Briefly on the development of power battery recycling and ladder utilization

With the rapid development of China's new energy automobile industry, power batteries will usher in a large-scale retiring tide. According to industry estimates, China's decommissioned power battery will be nearly 12GWh in 2018. In 2020, the power battery recovery will be close to 25GWh, and by 2022, the power battery recovery will be close to 45GWh. Tuojin Research believes that with the approach of the decommissioning of power batteries, the recovery and utilization of power batteries as the last mile of new energy vehicles will become the next blue ocean.

The practical significance of battery recycling and ladder utilization

For decommissioning power batteries, “disassembly and recycling” and “step utilization” are two complementary methods that are widely recognized in the industry. At present, China is already the world's largest power battery market. Such large-scale power batteries are decommissioned in a centralized manner, and battery recycling and ladder utilization are well done. Whether it is economic, resource security or environmental protection, there is great necessity and Realistic meaning.

"The clever woman is difficult to be without rice." The production of power batteries is inseparable from raw materials. With the rapid development of China's power battery industry, the demand for battery raw materials is also growing. Cobalt and nickel are the scarcest resources in power batteries. Since 2016, the price of nickel has doubled from a low point, while the price of cobalt has more than tripled. Half of the reserves of cobalt are in the politically unstable Congo (Gold), the arrest of the child laborer and the rumored windfall tax have seriously affected the stability of the cobalt price and the investment plan of the enterprise. In the case of scarce resource prices and uncertain production, it is particularly important to obtain resources from battery recycling and extend battery life.

Battery recycling has enormous economic value. In the current rising price of upstream materials, the revenue from ternary battery recycling is very high. At present, the cost of recycling ternary batteries is about 15,000-20000 yuan / ton. After recycling and dismantling, the metal materials can be sold at 42,000 yuan according to the current resource price. Tuojin Research said that according to the metal-containing value, the domestic power battery recycling market will exceed 10 billion yuan in 2022, and will continue to expand with the growth of the new energy industry in the future.

From an environmental point of view, waste power batteries contain a lot of heavy metals and organic matter, electrolytes and their toxic gases produced by their conversion products, which will seriously threaten the environment and human health, and cause tremendous pressure on the social ecological environment. Therefore, doing a good job in power battery recycling and ladder utilization is also a major ecological construction task.

Principle of recycling after first use

Generally speaking, the average life of a power battery is 5-8 years, and its performance is attenuated as the number of times of charging increases. When the remaining capacity of the battery is reduced to 70%-80% of the initial capacity, the vehicle power usage requirement cannot be met. However, the decommissioned power battery has been tested, screened, reorganized, etc., and can be used in low-speed electric vehicles, backup power supply, power storage and other operating conditions with relatively good operating conditions and low battery performance requirements. When the battery cannot be used for the ladder, it needs to be dismantled and recycled for resource treatment.

Tuojin Research believes that from the point of view of resource utilization, the direct recycling of decommissioned batteries as raw materials is actually a loss in disguise. The electric vehicle phase accounts for only 36% of the total available energy of the battery life cycle. If no ladder utilization is used, the cost of use is calculated based on the total cost of the battery life cycle. When the cost of using the power battery is 1000 yuan per kWh, the service life is more than 1000 times, and the cost performance exceeds the lead-acid battery. In the "Interim Measures for the Management of Recycling and Utilization of New Energy Vehicles' Power Battery" jointly issued by the State's multi-ministerial committees, it is proposed that the use of used power storage batteries should follow the principle of recycling after first use.

Exploration of obstacles and patterns in the use of ladders

At present, China's echelon utilization energy storage system has been able to achieve 1 yuan / Wh, but because there are still many obstacles, so the country has not been widely promoted. Tuojin Research pointed out that China's power battery has not officially entered the stage of large-scale decommissioning, so the number of batteries that can be used in cascade is not enough. And early power battery performance, quality and cost are not as good as current batteries. Tuojin Research emphasizes that due to the rapid progress of China's power battery industry in the past few years, the lack of reference data, coupled with the uneven performance and specifications of decommissioned batteries, as well as the difficulty of detecting ratios, make the current use of ladders difficult. Big. At the national level, relevant industry supporting policies have not yet reached the ground. For example, China's time-sharing pricing has not been implemented nationwide, so that the economic benefits of energy storage batteries cannot be maximized. Therefore, most of the current utilization projects of power batteries are in the stage of exploration and verification.

Tuojin Research believes that in terms of current market conditions, lithium iron phosphate batteries are more suitable for ladder utilization than ternary batteries. Due to resource price factors, the recovery value of lithium iron phosphate batteries is very low. However, its own capacity retention rate and electrolyte retention rate are higher than that of the ternary battery, the charging times are higher, the safety is higher, and the use value is higher. At present, lithium iron phosphate batteries have limited space for improvement in performance and cost, so lithium iron phosphate batteries will be more suitable and prior to the use of ternary batteries in the energy storage industry.

With the improvement of battery performance and the sharp decline in cost, the value of existing and future power battery ladder utilization is greatly improved. Domestic companies are also beginning to deploy in the areas of battery recycling and ladder utilization. At the beginning of 2018, China Iron Tower and 16 new energy companies such as Chongqing Changan, BYD and Yinlong signed a “new energy vehicle power battery recycling strategic partnership agreement” to explore the mode of power battery ladder utilization.

Applicable scenarios and business models for ladder utilization

Tuojin Research believes that the use of the ladder can not only further reduce the cost of the battery from the business model, but also reduce the cost of the energy storage battery, and can also promote more energy storage application scenarios and markets. Different energy storage scenarios have different battery requirements, so the use of decommissioned power battery ladders to apply the applicable scenarios and business models is the next problem that needs to be explored. The innovative attempts of foreign shaving and utilization have great significance for the domestic market that has just started.

FreeWire Corporation of the United States has introduced a mobile charging station called Mobi. This product is made of used electric vehicle batteries and can store 48kwh of electricity, which exceeds the battery capacity of most electric vehicles on the market. Nissan Motor Co., Ltd. and Sumitomo Corporation established a joint venture in 2010 to establish 4REnergy Co., Ltd., which is committed to realizing the secondary commercial use of Nissan Leaf's lithium battery. The company recycles used batteries from Japan and the US market for residential and commercial use energy storage equipment. In Europe, Younicos recycles batteries to build virtual power plants that combine distributed energy and will participate in the pricing of electricity in the FM market. The German Bosch Group built a 2MW/2MWh large-scale photovoltaic power storage system using BMW's ActiveE and i3 pure electric vehicles. In addition, Tesla has also deployed in the field of grid-level energy storage applications, household energy storage walls, solar energy storage and other fields. These futures are also scenarios of potential ladder utilization.

Industry alliance-led battery recycling model

For scrapped batteries that cannot be used for ladder use, they must be dismantled and recovered by technical means. From the experience of foreign countries, Japan has gradually established a battery recycling system for "battery production - sales - recycling - recycling" since 1994. It is stipulated that car dealers are responsible for free recycling of used car batteries to the society, and car battery manufacturers are the main person in charge of recycling of used batteries. After the manufacturer collects the used batteries from the dealer, it is handed over to the used battery processor for recycling. While the United States does not currently have federal-level regulatory policies, Tesla is working with battery recycling companies Kinsbursky Brothers and Umicore to recycle batteries in North America and Europe.

According to the current domestic policy direction, China's recycling model will be between the Japanese and Tesla models, with a production-led industry alliance model. In February 2018, the seven ministries and commissions led by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology issued the "Interim Measures for the Management of Recycling and Utilization of New Energy Vehicles' Power Battery", proposing the implementation of the producer responsibility extension system, placing automobile production enterprises at the top of the responsibility, and also encouraging automobile and battery production. Enterprises, scrap car recycling and dismantling enterprises and comprehensive utilization enterprises cooperate to build recycling channels. At present, the form of the alliance has gradually formed: in the Ningde era, through the acquisition of the previous acquisition of Bangpu, GEM and BYD and Dongfeng established recycling cooperation, and Beiqi established an alliance with Zhangzhou Haopeng. These alliances will set the industry model for China's power battery recycling in the future.

Tuojin Research believes that the dismantling and recycling of power batteries in China has just started. With the time of large-scale decommissioning of power batteries, the task of falling in the Chinese battery industry has become more and more urgent. Stones from other hills, can learn. Domestic enterprises should base themselves on the Chinese market environment and actively learn from the successful experiences of foreign countries to find solutions that are suitable for their own industrial development. It is believed that under the joint efforts of the government's policy support and the vast battery industry chain enterprises, a relatively complete battery recycling and ladder utilization mode will be formed.

The page contains the contents of the machine translation.