At the 2022 World Power Battery Conference Green and Low Carbon Travel Exhibition, visitors learned about the power system of new energy vehicles.
Xinhua News Agency reporter Damon photo
The price of raw materials for power batteries has risen sharply.
Following the intensive price increase of new energy vehicles in March this year, on July 365, 438+0, and August 65, 438+0, Zero Run Automobile and smart Automobile successively announced that they would raise the guidance prices of some of their models, and the reason behind it directly pointed to the rising prices of upstream raw materials.
As the main raw materials of power batteries for new energy vehicles, the demand for upstream resources such as lithium, cobalt and nickel is increasing with the rapid development of electric vehicle industry. However, the development project cycle of related resources is long, and the mismatch between supply and demand leads to the continuous increase in prices. In May this year, the price of lithium was seven times higher than that at the beginning of last year, the price of cobalt more than doubled, and the price of nickel almost doubled.
According to the data of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, in the first half of 2022, China's lithium-ion battery industry achieved rapid growth under the guidance of the peak carbon neutral target of carbon dioxide emissions and strong downstream demand. According to industry standard announcements, enterprise information and industry associations, the national output of lithium-ion batteries exceeded 280GWh in the first half of the year, up by 1.50% year-on-year, and the industry income exceeded 480 billion yuan.
In this regard, Cao Wenyu, deputy general manager of BYD Foday Battery Division II, was deeply touched. He pointed out at the high-end forum of China new energy materials industry chain held recently that the explosive growth of new energy vehicles and the superposition of energy storage and consumer electronic battery markets will lead to the increase of lithium battery shipments 10 times in the future. However, due to the epidemic situation in COVID-19 and other factors, the price of raw materials in the upstream of the power battery has jumped sharply, the supply and demand are tight, and the cost pressure of enterprises is great. The price of lithium carbonate even rose from 40,000 yuan/ton to 500,000 yuan/ton.
The demand on the consumer side will continue to climb in the future. In the first half of 2022, the production and sales of new energy vehicles in China were 266 1 10,000 and 2.6 million respectively, up by 1.2 times year-on-year. The scale of production and sales reached a new high, and the market penetration rate reached 2 1.6%. Chen Demei, vice president of SAIC, predicts that the sales of new energy vehicles in China will exceed 5.5 million this year, and the penetration rate of new energy vehicles will exceed 25% by the end of the 14th Five-Year Plan.
Zhang Jiangfeng, vice president of Lithium Branch of China Nonferrous Metals Industry Association, said that the global demand for lithium will also increase substantially in the next few years, and it is estimated that the annual growth rate of world lithium production and consumption will be about 30%. The demand for lithium in new energy vehicles, energy storage and other fields will continue to increase. It is not excluded that there will be a leap-forward growth at a certain stage, and the growth of consumer lithium batteries will be relatively stable.
Visitors watch the raw materials for producing power batteries.
Xinhua News Agency reporter Damon photo
Give birth to a new round of investment boom
According to Duan Debing, vice president of China Nonferrous Metals Industry Association, the explosive growth of consumption and the shortage of raw materials caused the staged mismatch between supply and demand, which not only greatly increased the manufacturing cost of new energy vehicles, but also gave birth to a new round of investment boom.
According to the data of USGS in 2022, the world's lithium resources are about 89 million tons; The reserve of lithium is 22 million tons, equivalent to more than 654.38 billion tons of lithium carbonate. In 20021year, the world output of lithium and its derivatives was equivalent to about 660,000 tons of lithium carbonate, increasing by more than 50% year-on-year.
At present, all governments attach great importance to the acquisition and development of lithium resources, and many countries, such as Chile, Bolivia and Mexico, list lithium resources as national strategic resources like oil.
In addition, Cao Wenyu also pointed out that nickel and cobalt are scarce resources in China at present, and China's proven cobalt resources account for 1. 14% of the world's total reserves, which is highly dependent on foreign countries. The shortage of cobalt resources directly restricts the development of high specific energy power batteries in China.
China has become the world's largest producer of new energy materials and new energy vehicles. Zhang, deputy director of the State Council Counselor's Office, said at the forum that it is foreseeable that the new energy vehicle and related battery materials industry will become an important advantage industry to win the right to speak in global industrial competition in the future.
At present, the development progress of China's lithium resource green space project is accelerating, and the production capacity of downstream cathode materials and lithium batteries is expanding rapidly, gradually forming a lithium life cycle industrial chain. Zhang Jiangfeng said that the lithium salt production capacity to be built in China this year and next will exceed 500,000 tons; By the end of 2022, the production capacity of cathode materials will exceed 3 million tons; The production capacity of electrolyte materials will exceed 200,000 tons.
Recently, lithium battery giant Yiwei Lithium Energy announced that it plans to sign an investment agreement with Zijin Lithium Industry and Ruifu Lithium Industry, set up a joint venture company in Hunan Province, and invest in the construction of a lithium salt project with an annual output of 90,000 tons in stages. The total investment scale of the project is estimated to be 3 billion yuan. The listed company Shengxin Lithium Energy currently has a lithium salt production capacity of 70,000 tons and a lithium salt production capacity of 60,000 tons under construction. In the semi-annual report of 2022, it indicated that it would continue to increase investment in lithium salt materials.
In Yi Kai Automobile Co., Ltd., Sanjiang New District, Yibin City, Sichuan Province, technicians installed the power batteries of new energy vehicles on the production line.
Xinhua News Agency reporter Damon photo
Technological innovation is very urgent.
Insiders pointed out that while China's new energy materials industry is developing at a high speed, there are also some unbalanced and uncoordinated problems, which need all enterprises in the upstream and downstream of the industrial chain to jointly deal with and accelerate innovation and upgrading.
Duan Debing suggested that to strengthen the resource strategy and consolidate the industrial base, we should not only strengthen domestic resource exploration and prospecting, but also pay attention to the intensive and efficient development of primary resources and increase the recycling and comprehensive utilization of renewable resources.
While increasing the development of upstream resources, the development of new energy materials industry needs to pay attention to technological innovation.
According to Yan Dazhou, chief scientist of advanced materials of China Minmetals Group and deputy chief engineer of China Enfei, the goal of double carbon drives the rapid development of new energy industry, and technological innovation is an important way to ensure the safety of industrial chain supply chain. According to the production technology and development trend of nickel-cobalt materials, laterite nickel ore is the focus of nickel-cobalt resources development in the future, because nickel-cobalt resources are highly concentrated in the world. Laterite-nickel ore resources have large reserves, shallow burial and little difficulty in mining. In recent years, the progress of laterite nickel ore smelting technology has created conditions for the supply of low-cost battery materials.
Technological innovation is very urgent. Cao Wenyu believes that the low-temperature performance, fast charging performance, energy density and safety of power batteries still need to be further improved and upgraded, and the market competition is fierce, which requires enterprises to comprehensively, rapidly and continuously carry out technological innovation and strengthen their core competitiveness. At the same time, on March 10, 2022, the European Parliament passed the EU Battery Regulation, which stipulated the minimum recycled content of cobalt, copper, lithium, nickel and other materials in batteries. Only when it meets the requirements can it enter the European market, and all power battery enterprises need to establish a battery recycling system.
Jiao Jian, deputy general manager of China Minmetals Group, suggested aiming at the high end and speeding up the innovation and upgrading of industrial chain. We should grasp the present situation and stabilize the good situation of industrial development; More importantly, we should look to the future, unite all scientific research forces, strengthen investment in basic research and technical issues, and push products and services to the high end.
While seizing the development opportunities, industrial chain enterprises should put the risk awareness ahead. Zhang Jiangfeng revealed that the Guangzhou Futures Exchange is accelerating the research and development of lithium and other futures products, providing effective risk management tools for the development of new energy industries such as energy storage, and helping to promote the green and low-carbon energy transformation smoothly and orderly.
Facing the future, leading enterprises in the upstream and downstream of the industrial chain should create innovations on major strategic issues such as resources, capital and technical direction, and constantly improve China's control over key links in the industry. Jiao Jian said.
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