Under the goal of "double carbon", the new energy industry has ushered in a new round of development opportunities. Energy storage is not only an important means to improve the flexibility, economy and security of traditional power system, but also a key technology to promote the replacement of main energy from fossil energy to renewable energy. It is the key to solve the clean development of energy and the stable supply of system. During the 14th Five Year Plan period and even for a longer period, the rapidly developing energy storage industry will fully support the realization of the goals of carbon peak and carbon neutralization in the energy field as scheduled.
Following the year-on-year growth of 66.8% in China's exports of batteries and parts in 2021, which reached a new high over the years, China's exports of energy storage batteries continued to grow significantly in the first quarter of this year, with the export of batteries and parts of about US $9.9 billion, a year-on-year increase of 50.1%. The white paper on the development of foreign trade in the energy storage industry in 2021 released by the Preparatory Committee of the energy storage branch of China Chamber of Commerce for import and export of mechanical and electrical products predicts that China's energy storage battery exports are expected to exceed US $40 billion in 2022 stimulated by overseas demand.
The export products of batteries are mainly lithium-ion batteries and lead-acid batteries. In the first quarter, the export volume of lithium-ion batteries was about 8.86 billion US dollars, with a year-on-year increase of 56.9%, accounting for 89.7% of the export share of batteries; The export value of lead-acid battery is US $0.8 billion, accounting for about 8.7% of the total export value of lead-acid battery.
Last year, China's exports of energy storage batteries reached US $32.73 billion, a year-on-year increase of 66.8%. In terms of export markets, the United States, Germany and South Korea are the main export markets of Chinese batteries and parts. Among them, China's exports to the United States were US $5.31 billion, a year-on-year increase of 86.1%; Exports to Germany reached US $3.69 billion, a year-on-year increase of 129.6%; Exports to South Korea reached US $3.08 billion, a year-on-year increase of 108.2%, both of which doubled.
As mentioned in the white paper, China has made it clear that it will achieve the development goal of cumulative installed energy storage capacity of 30GW by 2025. In the next five years, we will realize the transformation of new energy storage from the initial stage of commercialization to large-scale, realize the comprehensive market-oriented development of new energy storage by 2030, and encourage the diversified development of energy storage. The implementation plan for the development of new energy storage in the 14th five year plan issued this year points out that by 2025, new energy storage will enter the stage of large-scale development from the initial stage of commercialization and have the conditions for large-scale commercial application. Among them, the performance of electrochemical energy storage technology is further improved, and the system cost is reduced by more than 30%. In 2022, more enterprises will launch and implement the "14th five year plan" energy storage development plan, and the installed capacity of new energy storage is expected to reach 15gw. All these will provide a solid industrial foundation for the export of energy storage batteries.
What are the possibilities for the development of China's energy storage industry in the future? The white paper points out that a variety of new energy storage routes may develop in parallel. At present, more than 80% of China's new energy storage projects use lithium-ion batteries, accounting for the highest proportion. However, 80% of China's lithium resources depend on imports. To promote the development of lithium batteries, we need to further solve the problems of safety and resource recovery. Therefore, at present, domestic enterprises and local governments are increasing the layout of sodium batteries. It is reported that sodium battery has the advantages of faster charging, safety and low cost, but the cycle life needs to be further improved, which may become the direction of technological breakthrough in the future.
In addition, due to the rich application scenarios of energy storage, the performance requirements of each scenario are different, some require high power and some require large capacity, while the energy storage technology has its own characteristics. In practical application, it needs to be comprehensively considered from many aspects, and the parallel development of a variety of new energy storage routes will be the trend.
The white paper also emphasizes that the "carbon footprint" may be an important competitive weapon in the global market. The carbon footprint certification system of the energy storage battery industry chain may become an important indicator to measure international competitiveness. For battery products, the carbon footprint not only refers to the carbon emission in the production and manufacturing process, but also includes the carbon emission summary of upstream material production, manufacturing, transportation and other links, which runs through the whole life cycle of the battery. This requires that upstream material links such as resource exploitation, precursors, positive and negative electrodes, electrolyte and diaphragm must also pay attention to the control of carbon emission and establish a traceable carbon footprint to realize the traceability and query of the whole life cycle. (reporter Liu Yelin)
Transferred from: International Business Daily