Cathode material depth report: lithium iron phosphate permeability continues to increase and the trend of ternary high nickelization remains unchanged [agency review]

Cathode material: the key Core of Lithium Battery performance

The upstream of lithium battery industry chain can be divided into four parts: positive electrode, negative electrode, diaphragm and electrolyte. Among them, the cathode material is the decisive factor of its electrochemical performance, which plays a leading role in the performance of the battery, and the cost proportion of the cathode material is also high, accounting for 30% of the material cost of the lithium battery, accounting for 30% of the cost of the lithium battery. Therefore, the cathode material is the key core of the performance of the lithium battery. From the perspective of industrial chain, the upstream of cathode materials includes raw materials of metal ores (cobalt ore, nickel ore, manganese ore, lithium ore, etc.), while downstream is the application of power battery, 3C battery and energy storage.

With the rapid growth of new energy vehicles, the installed capacity of lithium iron phosphate continues to increase, and the permeability of electric vehicles continues to increase in 2021. Sales of electric vehicles in December 2021 were 530900, an increase of 18.02 per cent from the previous month and 113.9 per cent over the same period last year, and the penetration rate of electric vehicles increased from 7.16 per cent in January to 19.06 per cent in December.

For the whole year, electric car sales reached 3.507 million in 2021, with an annual penetration rate of 13.4%. The installed capacity of power batteries continued to increase in 2021, and the month-on-month growth rate increased rapidly at the end of the year. In 2021, the installed capacity of power batteries reached 263.7 GWH in December, an increase of 45.4% month-on-month and 96% higher than the same period last year. Judging from the annual growth trend, installed electricity increased steadily in the first three quarters, with a month-on-month growth rate of about 35%, and rose extremely rapidly in the fourth quarter, with a month-on-month growth rate of about 60%. The reason for the inflection point of iron-lithium permeability in 2020 is the weakening of subsidy policy and the improvement of energy density of iron-lithium system by CTP. On the one hand, after the domestic subsidy has experienced a sharp decline, the disturbance caused by the choice of technical solutions of automobile enterprises is obviously weakened, and the subsidy scheme no longer emphasizes the improvement of energy density. On the other hand, what is more important is that the excellent battery companies Ningde era and BYD have successively launched the packaging process innovation of CTP and blade battery, which has brought a substantial increase in the group efficiency from the cell to the PACK link.

The shortage of production capacity has led to the decline of market concentration, and the competitiveness of excellent companies still leads the way. By the end of 2021, the domestic production capacity of lithium iron phosphate is 640,000 tons / year. According to the production plans of various companies, the production capacity of lithium iron phosphate will expand rapidly in the next few years. It is expected that the production capacity of lithium iron phosphate will increase by 1.4 million tons to 2.03 million tons by the end of 2024, and the CAGR will reach 46% by 2021 to 2024. In comparison, only four companies issued an announcement on the expansion of ternary cathode materials in 2021, and it is expected that the production capacity of ternary battery cathode materials will increase by 330000 tons by 2024, which is much lower than that of lithium iron phosphate. In terms of output, Hunan Yuneng ranks first in the industry for two consecutive years, and its market share has further increased to 25% in 2021.

Risk tips: insufficient supply of resources in the upper reaches, prices continue to rise sharply, slow production expansion in some links in the middle reaches, resulting in lower-than-expected production and sales volume of the industry; the impact of international trade frictions.