CCID Research Institute under the Ministry of industry and information technology recently released the 2021 white paper on China’s lithium battery industry development index, which analyzes the current development scale and level of China’s lithium battery industry from the dimensions of market, capital, innovation and supply.
The report shows that since the fourth quarter of 2017, China’s lithium battery industry development index has shown a steady upward trend as a whole. In the fourth quarter of 2021, China’s lithium battery industry development index reached 307.6, more than three times that of 2017. In addition, the scale of China’s lithium battery industry rose sharply in 2021, and the lithium battery market reached 324gwh, four times that of 2017.
Globally, China has become the world’s largest lithium battery consumer market for five consecutive years. In 2021, the global lithium-ion battery market reached 545gwh, and the scale of China’s lithium-ion battery market was about 324gwh, accounting for 59.4% of the global market. By the end of 2021, China Shipbuilding Industry Group Power Co.Ltd(600482) battery capacity accounted for about 70% of the world. Among the top ten lithium battery manufacturers in the world, China occupies 6 seats, of which Contemporary Amperex Technology Co.Limited(300750) ( Contemporary Amperex Technology Co.Limited(300750) ) has ranked first in the world for five consecutive years.
Data source: SNE research
According to Ma Chengen, senior engineer of CCID Research Institute of the Ministry of industry and information technology, power battery is the largest market product in our country. It is estimated that the global demand for power battery should be close to 1 t watt hour in 2025, and the proportion of China’s power battery market should reach about 60%.
Experts pointed out that the strong demand for new energy vehicles is one of the main factors to boost the surge of China’s lithium battery industry in 2021. By April 2022, China Shanxi Guoxin Energy Corporation Limited(600617) automobile has promoted 10.33 million vehicles in total, becoming an important force leading the electric transformation of the global automobile industry.
In recent years, investment in China’s lithium battery industry has tended to gather in the southwest. Among them, Sichuan Province is the province with the highest investment amount of lithium battery industry projects in China in 2021, with a total investment of 170.67 billion yuan, accounting for about 18% of the total investment.
Distribution map of main lithium forming zones in China
Southwest China has the richest lithium, phosphorus and other mineral resources in China, and the phosphate rock reserves in Yunnan, Guizhou and Sichuan account for more than 40% of the country. Therefore, from the perspective of project layout of lithium battery industry, the investment area is transferred from southeast coastal areas such as Jiangsu and Fujian to western provinces (regions and cities) led by Sichuan and Guizhou.
In addition to Sichuan, Jiangxi, Zhejiang and other places are also building characteristic lithium battery industry clusters. In the first quarter of this year, 31 lithium battery enterprises above Designated Size in Xinyu, Jiangxi Province are expected to achieve an operating revenue of more than 8.2 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of about 260%.
At the same time, it is also mentioned in the report that the production capacity of several material grade products such as upstream lithium iron phosphate, precursor and lithium hexafluorophosphate is in short supply, resulting in a serious shortage of battery core materials and frequent occurrence of large order locking. In view of the shortage of raw material production capacity, while investing in China’s upstream minerals, Chinese lithium battery enterprises are also accelerating the pace of global layout and actively entering the overseas lithium market.
Ma Chengen, senior engineer of CCID Research Institute of the Ministry of industry and information technology, said: “driven by the dual carbon vision, there will be great technological growth in the energy storage market in the future, and it also has great development potential in the fields of electric bicycles, electric tools, battery recycling and so on.”
With a large number of power batteries gradually entering the “retirement period”, the lithium battery recycling outlet has come. Since 2022, the Ministry of industry and information technology and other departments have repeatedly mentioned the power battery recycling industry, aiming to extend the industrial chain of intensive and deep processing of renewable resources and promote the efficient recycling of strategic metal wastes such as steel, copper, aluminum, zinc, nickel, cobalt and lithium.
According to the prediction of China Research Institute of industry, the power battery recycling market is expected to exceed 200 billion yuan from 2020 to 2030. Among them, the recycling space of ternary battery is about 130.5 billion yuan, and the recycling space of lithium iron phosphate battery is about 68 billion yuan.
