A brief introduction to the present situation of energy storage industry of lithium-ion batteries in China

Recently, Tesla's commitment to building Australia's largest battery storage system in the world within 100 days was hailed by industry insiders. The storage system injected the most primitive vitality into the new energy ecosystem of its "Tesla Empire." This further marks the important position of the "energy storage" link in the new energy industry.

As a new energy power, the new energy industry has developed rapidly in recent years, and energy storage has been closely watched. In the face of huge market demand and potential, domestic energy storage enterprises such as the sleeping Lion are ready to go. This paper discusses the current situation from the aspects of market capacity, market distribution, technology and cost, business model, etc.

Energy storage market-the total capacity is very impressive, user side potential is huge

The new energy installed capacity will contribute 90 % of the increase in energy consumption, and the power of supporting energy storage devices will be calculated according to 15 % of the wind power and photovoltaic installed capacity. By 2030, the demand for energy storage batteries is expected to reach 850 million kWh, which will be calculated at a price of 1,200 yuan per kilowatt-hour energy storage system (lithium battery). China's scenic energy storage market is expected to reach 1 trillion yuan (RMB).

At the China Manufacturing Summit in early January, Dongmingzhu, Dalian Wanda Group, Zhongji Group, and Zhuhai Yinlong New Energy Co., Ltd. signed a capital increase agreement and jointly increased their capital by 3 billion yuan. It obtained 22.338 % of Zhuhai Yinlong's equity.

In the current application field, the three major areas of energy storage include: large-scale scenery storage, backup power supply for communication base stations, and household storage energy. Among them, the reserve power field of the communication base station currently accounts for a large proportion. The family storage energy has a larger space for further development and expansion through the wave of "energy households" set off by Tesla. The large-scale scenery storage energy seems to have little momentum in the short term.

However, in the case of lithium electrons, not all lithium batteries are suitable for each energy storage field.

These markets, which were previously rarely used due to the economic reasons of energy storage systems, will erupt rapidly in the near future:

* It is reported that by 2030, electric vehicles will have an annual capacity of 20 million vehicles. The use of power cells will greatly reduce the cost of the energy storage industry. The rapid development of new energy vehicles will also promote the expansion of the energy storage industry.

Various policies promote industrial development at the same time -- energy storage has been named in a number of policies, including the Action Plan for Innovation in Energy Technology Revolution(2016-2030), the Outline of the National Innovation Driven Development Strategy, and the Implementation Plan for Made in China 2025-Energy Equipment; These policies describe the road map for the innovative development of energy storage technologies, and focus on key technologies, testing and demonstration, and technology equipment for energy storage.

· The steady development of distributed photovoltaic industry -- Distributed photovoltaic is undoubtedly a stable and powerful needle for the development of the energy storage industry. Clean energy and energy storage build energy ecosystems for each other and build a solid platform for each other. According to the statistics of the National Energy Bureau, by the end of June 17, The National distributed photovoltaic installed capacity reached 17.43 million kilowatts.

Lithium Battery Storage Energy -- Technology Maturity and Cost Reduction

Lithium-ion batteries are currently the most common energy storage technology on the market, and are widely used in a variety of personal electronic products, mobile devices and even car batteries for electric vehicles. Usually, the lithium battery we refer to refers to a lithium-ion battery, which is generally classified into a storage lithium battery and a power lithium battery according to the use. The energy storage lithium battery is used for photovoltaic or UPS, the internal resistance is relatively large, the charging and discharging speed is slow, generally 0.5-1C, the power battery is generally used in electric vehicles, the internal resistance is small, the charging and discharging speed is fast, generally can reach 3- 5C, the price is about 1.5 times more expensive than the energy storage battery.

Energy density, power density, safety performance, charging time, and environmental resistance are the five major indicators for evaluating the performance of lithium batteries. At present, China has reached the initial standard in the last four points of lithium battery technology, but it needs to further refine the energy density. Process, waiting for progress. On March 1, 2017, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, the Development and Reform Commission, the Ministry of Science and Technology, and the Ministry of Finance jointly issued the Action Plan for the Development of the Automobile power battery Industry, which requires major breakthroughs in power battery key materials and parts. By 2020, key materials and components such as positive and negative poles, diaphragm and electrolytes will reach the world-class level, and upstream industrial chains will achieve balanced and coordinated development, forming innovative backbone enterprises with core competitiveness. The requirement of this scheme for battery specific energy is bound to trigger a new wave of high energy density materials.

At present, the hot lithium titanate material also deserves attention. It can replace graphite as a negative electrode material. Although the energy density is not high, lithium titanate can allow the battery to achieve high rate of charge and discharge, and the safety performance is excellent, and the cycle life is long. It is reported that the fourth-generation high-energy density lithium titanate battery developed by Yinlong is 40 % lower in cost and 60 % higher in energy density than the third generation. The industry is optimistic that in the future, lithium titanate batteries may form a three-pronged situation with lithium ternary batteries and lithium iron phosphate batteries.

Although the high cost of lithium-ion batteries is a serious challenge to the development of the industry, many companies have always been committed to improving the cost performance of lithium-ion batteries. According to the analysis of the price of lithium batteries by EnergyTrend analyst Lvlishun, the price of lithium batteries has risen slightly in the first, second and third quarters of 17 years, but in general, with the market in recent years. The demand for lithium batteries continues to expand, mass production of lithium batteries, its cost is declining year by year, and the current price is enough to be commercialized and widely used.

In addition, after the power lithium battery decays to an initial capacity of less than 80 %, it can be used terraced to the energy storage field, further reducing the cost of energy storage lithium batteries.

Technical life, policy determines the market

After a long period of development and progress, the main technology framework and its economy have been widely recognized, and it has been well developed with the help of national policies and the market. Unlike photovoltaic technology, energy storage technology is still in a stage of continuous breakthrough. There is still room for narrowing the technology gap at home and abroad. There are lithium iron phosphate batteries to lithium trioxide batteries, and then to the current hot lithium titanate materials. The technological changes have affected the cost of lithium batteries and the balance of the industrial chain, so investors In mass production, we have to face the risk of technological upgrading. I got dumped by accident.

In addition, many companies are still waiting for the state to introduce subsidy policies, such as subsidizing the photovoltaic industry to subsidize the energy storage industry on a large scale, so it is still in a wait-and-see posture. In fact, regardless of whether there will be subsidies, companies that have entered the market first will inevitably seize the market. Highland.

The current situation of business model: industrial chain closed loop moving forward steadily

At present, the state has not issued any subsidy policies for the energy storage industry. It is still unknown whether the energy storage industry can develop as rapidly as the new energy vehicles in recent years, but the enterprises that have priority in entering the market will undoubtedly occupy the market highlands and can continue to develop more effectively. I think that There are no more than three types of companies that can enter the market as a matter of priority: including commercial giants with strong finances, similar to Wanda, and companies with core technologies, and finally companies with complete industrial chains(from photovoltaic to storage energy to user-side products, To achieve a full set of supply, self-produced sales, you can share the cost pressure brought by the energy storage link).

At present, most of the energy storage enterprises in the market are joint Ventures, which is the third type of enterprise mentioned above. Joint ventures and equity participation can make full use of the resource advantages of both strategic cooperation and share battery technology, energy storage systems, and sales networks. Together, the dominant technology is used to store energy and segment the market. LG Chemistry, Samsung SDI, Yiwei Lithium Energy, and Guoxuan Gaoke all use this method.

Joint ventures and equity participation are of great significance in the realization of the layout of the whole industrial chain ecosystem. They can be built upstream or in cooperation with material enterprises to ensure the supply of raw materials and reduce procurement and production costs. And in the downstream through the way of shares with the vehicle enterprises to achieve the strategic cooperation of large customer binding. Then we have successfully constructed an all-industry chain ecological closed-loop system, which has greatly strengthened the market competitive advantage in terms of reducing cost, improving product performance and overall competitive strength. It can be seen from the current situation that many companies have set their sights on the great changes in the human lifestyle in the future and have invested in the future. In the future, they will present a more complete and diversified business model and development strategy.

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