Lithium Grid News: In recent years, with the rapid development of China's new energy vehicles , the demand for power batteries has soared, directly driving the rapid growth of related industries represented by lithium batteries . However, with the changes in industrial policies and changes in market patterns, problems such as overcapacity and short battery life have become bottlenecks restricting industrial development.

On June 21, the “Lithium Industry International Summit Forum” co-sponsored by the Qinghai Provincial People’s Government, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, and the Ministry of Science and Technology and the China Electric Vehicles 100 People’s Association was held in Xining City, Qinghai Province. Scholars and business representatives have discussed how to build a good lithium battery industry development ecology.

Industrial development is improving overall
Since the “Twelfth Five-Year Plan”, China’s new energy vehicle market has grown rapidly. From 2011 to 2016, sales of new energy vehicles have grown from less than 5,000 vehicles to 510,000 vehicles, and the number of new energy vehicles has increased from 10,000 to 1 million. In 2016, sales of new energy vehicles have exceeded 1.8% of total vehicle sales. Driven by the rapid development of the new energy automobile industry, the demand for power batteries continues to increase. According to the report of the China Electric Vehicles 100-person conference, the total demand for lithium-ion batteries for domestic electric vehicles in the first quarter of this year was 1.27GWh, and the cumulative shipment of power batteries was 4018.273MWh. As the production and sales of new energy vehicles continue to grow, the market demand for lithium batteries will continue to expand.

Under the influence of factors such as gradual deepening of technology research and development and increasingly fierce market competition, the types of power batteries have also been gradually established. Affected by the different production process requirements of power batteries, it is expected that the soft pack batteries will continue to stabilize the output and the first place in the growth rate in 2017. At the same time, with the power battery factory, especially the leading enterprises such as Guoxuan and BYD, the square power battery production line will be expanded on a large scale. In 2018, the square battery core will replace the soft battery core to become the most popular battery type in the market. From the point of view of the battery case equipped affected by the policy, new energy bus routes existing battery technology base has been set, lithium iron phosphate batteries in electric absolute dominance field buses, three yuan battery dominant in the field of pure electric passenger vehicles status.

At the same time, with the deepening of battery technology research and development, the specific energy of lithium-ion battery systems is increasing year by year, and the cost is decreasing year by year. Ouyang Minggao, executive vice president of China Electric Vehicles 100, said: "The power battery has nearly doubled its energy in the past five years, and the cost has dropped. It is estimated that the cost will drop to 1 yuan / watt hour by 2020."

Ouyang Minggao also said that in recent years, power batteries have also made significant progress in terms of safety. "The most prone to accidents in a battery is not a single thermal runaway, but an entire system expansion after a single thermal runaway, which can cause a major accident. In this regard, our domestic work is leading the world, now The thermal runaway characteristics can be predicted at the battery design stage," Ouyang Minggao said.

Determining the market is still difficult
In 2016, the central government's subsidy policy for new energy vehicles began to tighten, and industrial policies changed from the GSP to the promotion of technological innovation. Affected by this, the production and sales of new energy vehicles fluctuated once. The market effect of the rapid growth of lithium batteries in the early stage also began to appear. Under the influence of multiple factors, lithium batteries showed overcapacity, and some small and medium-sized enterprises were already in a state of suspension or semi-discontinuation. At the same time, the lithium battery market concentration has further increased. In 2015, the top 5 companies accounted for 56.3% of the market, and in 2016 this proportion increased to 64.5%. Wu Zhixin, deputy director of the China Automotive Technology and Research Center, believes that the current overcapacity is a structural overcapacity and a phased surplus. “Really good battery products are still in short supply. For the fast-growing new energy automobile industry, there is still a strong demand for capacity in the future. may".

Although the production and sales of new energy vehicles have increased year after year, in order to compete with fuel vehicles in the market competition, new energy vehicles need to further improve the cost performance. The so-called cost performance is the mileage cost ratio. This improvement requires improvement in battery performance, reduction in power consumption and efficiency of the vehicle, facilitation of charging facilities, and safety management. The most important thing is to improve battery performance. According to estimates, if the battery energy can be increased to 300 watt-hours / kg, it can meet the needs of various types of cars. A number of industry experts said that reducing the cost of batteries requires the development of the entire industry chain, breakthroughs in key areas. Taking the raw material link as an example, the cost of lithium carbonate has been as low as 13,000 yuan / ton, but the market price is more than 150,000 yuan / ton. In addition, issues such as improved yield and consistency in manufacturing, material recovery and recycling are important factors influencing battery costs.

Ouyang Ming said that the current safety control of new energy vehicles still has challenges. "I recommend evaluating the safety technology threshold for high-power DC fast charging. 350 kW charging, the voltage of electric vehicles will increase to 1000 volts, charging current 350. Ann, this will bring major technical challenges to the vehicle's electrical safety, battery safety, charging safety, and grid security. Therefore, we must fully consider China's national conditions and formulate scientific and reasonable charging technology standards."

There is still room for industrial upgrading
Qi Guochun, deputy director of the Industrial Equipment Division of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, said that China's power battery industry still has a lot of shortcomings in basic key materials, system integration technology, manufacturing equipment and processes. In response to the current problems in the power battery industry, Yan Guochun said that it should start from two aspects. First, increase the key technical research of power batteries, build a collaborative power sharing platform for collaborative research and open sharing, support the introduction of high-quality resources, and accelerate the construction of the power battery innovation center. The second is to promote the coordinated development of the entire industry chain. Promote the coordinated development of power battery and materials parts, equipment, vehicle and other industries, promote the construction of an industrial chain system that is independent, controllable, coordinated and efficient to meet development goals; encourage power battery manufacturers and equipment manufacturers to strengthen and strengthen key Collaborative research on link manufacturing equipment; promote the industrialization of intelligent manufacturing complete sets of equipment, and effectively meet the needs of power battery manufacturing and manufacturing.

Fang Haifeng, deputy director of the New Energy Vehicle and Fiscal and Tax Policy Research Office of China Automotive Technology and Research Center, said that at present, the entire power battery industry is overly dependent on policies, and the standard system needs to be improved. Standardization of power battery products and promotion of industrial sustainability. Some aspects of policy regulation and standard setting for development still require further research.

As a representative of the company, Li Ping, co-founder and vice chairman of Ningde Times New Energy Technology Co., Ltd., believes that the predictability of policies is very important for the development of enterprises. "So how to adjust the policies and replace the original policies with them should be Study in advance."

Wu Zhixin also suggested that the government departments should promptly start research on measures under market conditions. "In the future, after the government's financial subsidies are completely withdrawn, they will enter the stage of complete market competition. The government should consider what kind of non-tax and tax direct subsidy policy incentives should be constructed. At the same time, the government should Turning the focus of work before the work into the matter, after-the-fact supervision, create a more level playing field, and lay a good foundation for the future healthy development of the industry."