China's power battery market shows a diversified development trend of letting a hundred flowers blossom.

With the explosive growth of new energy vehicle sales, power battery has also ushered in the "highlight moment" of the explosion of installed capacity, and its development prospect is bright. In the face of the goal of global carbon emissions, the sustainable development of power battery industry chain is particularly important. How to balance carbon emission targets with sustainable development is also a test for the power battery industry.

On December 2, the 2021 media communication meeting of the China Electric vehicle Association of 100 people was held in Beijing. At the meeting, Ouyang Minggao, academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and vice president of the China Electric vehicle Association, made a report entitled "promoting the Sustainable growth of New Energy vehicles". The report introduces the development of new energy vehicles from four aspects: vehicle technology, battery sustainable development, recharging and intelligent energy of electric vehicles, hydrogen fuel and fuel cells. Among them, the thinking on the development of power battery industry is worthy of our attention.

The maturity of power battery technology lays the foundation for the outbreak of electric vehicle sales.

In 2021, the new energy vehicle market has entered a stage of explosive growth, and the sales and penetration of new energy vehicles show a trend of rapid growth month by month. According to industry data, sales of new energy vehicles in China reached 2.99 million from January to November 2021 and are expected to reach 3.3 million in 2021. Ouyang Minggao expects sales of new energy vehicles in China to reach 5 million in 2022.

Power battery, as the core component of electric vehicle, has laid a solid foundation for the growth of new energy vehicles because of its continuous improvement in technology, reduction in cost, continuous innovation in battery system structure design, large-scale application of innovative processes such as blade and CTP, and continuous maturity of lithium iron phosphate battery technology.

Ouyang Minggao said that based on the demand for long-term life of new energy vehicles, the power battery is still towards high-specific energy high-nickel ternary lithium-ion battery, or solid-liquid hybrid high-nickel ternary lithium-ion battery, fundamentally improve the energy density of power battery.

When new energy vehicles enter a period of fierce competition, the improvement of battery technology will play an important role in the competition of new energy vehicles in China. At present, China's battery technology occupies a leading position in the world. Ouyang Minggao said that China's battery industry chain is relatively complete, 70% of the global battery capacity is in China, and the competitiveness of China's power battery industry can hardly be shaken in the short term. At the same time, he pointed out that, however, other countries have not relaxed their efforts to tackle key problems in battery technology. Japan, the United States and other countries strongly support a new generation of high-performance power batteries represented by solid-state batteries, "but it is estimated that it will take about 10 years for the industrialization of all-solid-state battery technology to have an important impact on the market pattern. China's battery research and development team is far ahead in the world, with a large number of young talents, as long as we continue to work hard. I believe that in the end, our country will be able to take the lead. "

The increase of installed capacity leads to the sustainable development of the whole industry chain.

At present, with the growth of production and sales of new energy vehicles, the installed capacity of power batteries has also broken out. From January to September 2021, the total installed capacity of power batteries in China is 92GWh.It is expected to reach 150GWh for the whole year. Ouyang Minggao said it is expected that the Chinese market will be loaded with power batteries around 600GWh by 2025 and 1500-2000GWh by 2030. Based on the number of new energy vehicles, the total number of on-board batteries in China can be predicted, which is expected to exceed 2000GWhs in 2025, 7000GWhs in 2030 and 15000GWh in 2035.

As the electric vehicle market is hot, stimulating upstream battery companies are also rapidly expanding production. Ouyang Minggao said that the current power battery has entered a period of short supply. According to statistics, the planned capacity of power battery in China will reach 1000 GWH in 2023 and close to 2500GWh in 2025.

At the same time, the rapid expansion of production capacity has stimulated the periodic increase in the price of materials in the upper reaches of the battery industry, causing the whole industry to worry about the shortage of raw material resources. For lithium ore, cobalt ore, nickel ore and other reserves, the global lithium resources economic recoverable reserves is 21 million tons, the total exploration reserves is 86 million tons. Ouyang Minggao said, "the total exploration reserves have been increasing in recent years, and the problem of raw materials does not seem to be big."

The concern of the industry is also justified. The limited reserves of cobalt resources and the uneven distribution of global resources are the focus of the industry's concern. Cobalt resources and economically recoverable reserves are only 7.1 million tons, and the global distribution of resources is extremely uneven. 2 of cobalt ore is dependent on Congo (gold) in Africa; 3 of lithium ore is distributed in Australia, Chile, Argentina and other countries; half of nickel ore depends on Indonesia and Russia.

It is worth noting that the "carbon footprint" of the battery is also worthy of attention. According to Ouyang Minggao, different types of batteries have different carbon emissions in their life cycle. Take the ternary high-nickel 811 lithium-ion battery as an example, the carbon emission in the whole life cycle is about 87 kilograms per kilowatt-hour. The relative carbon emission of ternary battery is relatively high, which is mainly due to the cathode material. Carbon emissions from precursors and cathode materials account for half of the total emissions of ternary batteries. Lithium iron phosphate batteries emit about 1/3 less carbon in their life cycle than ternary NCM811 batteries.

In order to solve the problem of battery carbon emissions, a number of domestic battery companies have transferred their production capacity to the west, such as Sichuan, Guizhou, Yunnan, Qinghai and other places, making full use of the "green power" resources in the western region. For example, the battery capacity planning in Sichuan Province has reached 500GWhh, of which Yibin has 160GWh.

Battery technology has entered an era of diversified development.

Although the current power battery is in the mainstream position, it also has places that can not be covered. Electric vehicles with power batteries are unevenly distributed in China, mostly concentrated in the south, central and eastern regions of the Great Wall. There is not much distribution in the north, west and northwest of the Great Wall.

In this regard, hydrogen fuel cell, which has gradually entered the public's field of vision in recent years, exists in the new energy vehicle market together with power cells because of its rich raw material storage, low-carbon clean, large-scale commercial mass production and so on. If the two can form a complementary form, it will greatly enhance the layout of new energy vehicles in the automotive industry, and can better and faster achieve the goal of reducing carbon emissions.

Ouyang Minggao said that the breakthrough in hydrogen fuel cell technology is almost a decade later than power cells, and that the cost of hydrogen fuel cells is in a period of rapid decline and will burst. Hydrogen fuel cell has entered a large-scale commercial demonstration stage, the Ministry of Finance and other five ministries have launched a national hydrogen fuel cell vehicle application demonstration project. For example, Beijing has recently launched a demonstration project of "hydrogen travel for the Winter Olympic Games" for fuel cell vehicles.

Ouyang Minggao also pointed out that the layout of hydrogen-powered electric vehicles should also take into account: adhere to the goal of clean and low carbon, and achieve new breakthroughs in hydrogen energy technology through technological innovation. Lead by the market, distribute hydrogen energy according to local conditions, and overcome the difficulties and shortcomings of hydrogen energy.

It should be noted that the current power battery market has entered a period of explosion, and its dominant position is difficult to shake in the short term, and hydrogen fuel cells will also take advantage of the opportunity to develop, but their size and scale, and even technology and talent reserve, are unable to compete with the main body of lithium batteries, which makes China's power battery market form a market pattern dominated by lithium batteries and supplemented by hydrogen fuel cells, showing a diversified development trend of letting a hundred flowers blossom.