Energy storage heat management enters the golden track head integrator becomes the biggest beneficiary

Energy storage is a key link to ensure the large-scale development of clean energy and the safe and economic operation of Electroweb. From the top-level design of the country to the policies issued by local provinces and cities, energy storage has become an important means to solve the energy reform. Safety is the core issue of energy storage power station, and thermal management is an important guarantee of energy storage safety.

In an expert conference call held by the Financial Associated Press on February 23, Dr. he, a product technology expert of a domestic head battery-energy storage company, gave a comprehensive interpretation of "the energy storage situation is good, how to protect thermal management". And the industry trends and future investment opportunities are analyzed.

Dr. he said that the attitude of the national policy towards the development of large-scale energy storage is very obvious. although there is no direct document support or subsidy policy for the thermal management system, we can see some tendencies in guiding the new type of energy storage policy. The application of large battery puts forward higher requirements for thermal management. among the several mainstream technologies of thermal management, individuals judge that the route of liquid cooling technology will gradually exceed the air cooling route and occupy the mainstream in the market in the second half of this year. Head integrators are gradually leading the thermal management market.

The permeability of liquid cooling scheme will be increased.

Energy storage system is one of the important equipment to improve power supply, which is suitable for all links of "power generation, transmission, distribution and use". According to the guidance on accelerating the Development of New Energy Storage issued by the National Development and Reform Commission and the National Energy Administration, it is clear that the scale of the new type of energy storage will reach more than 30GW by 2025. Assuming that the electrochemical energy storage capacity of wind power photovoltaic in 2025 and 2030 is 315,684GW, and the corresponding investment cost is about 4725 and 683.6 billion yuan, if the thermal management investment cost accounts for 3% of the energy storage system investment cost in 2025 and 2030, it is estimated that the corresponding energy storage thermal management investment scale in 2025 and 2030 is 142,236,205-34.2 billion yuan.

As more and more provinces and cities require the allocation of energy storage for new energy power generation projects, which enhances the market demand for energy storage, due to the increasing capacity of the power station, the safety and stability of the power plant has been paid more and more attention. Battery thermal management is very important to the service life and operation safety of power battery. at present, many companies have arranged energy storage temperature and heat control management products, and most of them have developed air-cooled and liquid-cooled thermal management systems based on their own product technology.

"in areas such as Shanxi and Inner Mongolia, when the capacity of the cell is greater than 280 A, the application of large cell puts forward higher requirements for the thermal management system. The first is the life of the cell, the second is the consistency of the cell, these two links are indispensable. Safety is a main line of national policy on energy storage. If the thermal management system is well planned, it can greatly reduce the risk of system security. In the area of thermal management system, the state has no direct documents to support policies or subsidies, but there is a tendency. Construction subsidies or operation subsidies are mainly reflected in energy storage power stations or energy storage systems, "the expert said.

The cooling methods of electrochemical energy storage temperature control system mainly include air cooling, liquid cooling, heat pipe cooling, phase change cooling and so on. According to expert analysis, air cooling has the advantages of simple structure, flexible application and low maintenance cost, but at the same time, air cooling is generally used in low power scenes because of its low specific heat capacity and thermal conductivity. Liquid cooling is a thermal management for the system in the form of coolant and liquid cooler. Its advantages are good cooling effect, fast response, convenient modular control and management, can be applied to different scenes, and the battery life is longer.

The expert revealed that at present, the top technology manufacturers in the market, such as Ningde Times, BYD, Yiwei Lithium Energy and Solar Energy, are pushing liquid cooling as a leading product this year. Judging from the current bidding trend, the requirements for battery life are becoming more and more stringent. Basically, it can be said that 100% of the solutions put forward by the head manufacturers are liquid-cooled, and the air cooling is no longer on the table for the head manufacturers. However, in some projects that require low battery life and especially care about cost, air-cooled schemes will be adopted.

He believes that in the future, with the increase of energy storage energy and charge-discharge rate, the proportion of liquid cooling will gradually increase, and the liquid cooling technology route will gradually surpass the air cooling route to occupy the mainstream in the market in the second half of this year. Standing at the present time, it is estimated that the proportion of liquid-cooled and air-cooled cities is about 6:4.

The head manufacturer dominates the thermal management market

In the energy storage liquid cooling temperature control system, the internal battery package liquid cooling system mainly includes liquid cooling plate, pipeline, quick plug joint and other parts. The above experts said that generally by the downstream energy storage system integrators for component procurement and assembly, the corresponding component value flows to the relevant link suppliers.

From the current point of view, battery manufacturers who still have the head under the liquid cooling trend will benefit because they have a better understanding of batteries. For example, in the Ningde era, because its battery life is relatively long, it can achieve 8000-10, 000 times, combined with its own liquid cooling technology, the battery consistency and quality are relatively good, and the life of the energy storage system can reach 7000-8000 times. It is very beneficial to improve the economy of allocation and storage, and the cost of kilowatt-hour electricity can be reduced accordingly, so this is one of the reasons why the bidding price of supporting products is relatively high in the market. At present, the biggest beneficiaries are the top battery manufacturers in China, system integrators extending from battery manufacturers.

He analyzed that the ecology of the energy storage system is relatively clear, and now it should be said that the whole field of energy storage is dominated by integrators, who cut in from several areas, such as Ningde, BYD and Yiwei, which take battery production as the core. Through the battery as the core to supply core components, the overall design of the battery system.

Others entered the field by providing core components to the overall solution of supplying battery systems, such as Sunshine Power and Huawei, which ended up offering terminal brands. So we can see that in the market, there are very few companies that specialize in thermal management of battery systems, and it is the integrators who make a leading design of the whole system, and then go down to find suppliers of related components.

As for the profit composition of each link of energy storage, experts believe that if you look at the gross profit margin alone, the BMS system is currently the highest. Judging from the data recently obtained, when there was not so much shortage of chips before, the gross profit margin of BMS can probably reach 30-40%. Due to the shortage of chips in the market, many BMS manufacturers have mastered the chip channel, and higher gross margins can be achieved through price increases. Combined with the market analysis report, the chip shortage will probably last until the first half of 2023. In the next two years, gross profit margin is definitely the highest BMS, but in terms of cost composition, the proportion of batteries in the energy storage system is definitely the largest. Some enterprises in the battery head, such as the Ningde era, can achieve a gross margin of 30%, while the gross margin of energy storage can reach 40% 50%, while that of second-tier manufacturers is about 20%.