New Energy News Roundup

SHANGHAI, Jul 13 (SMM) – A weekly update on the trending stories from the New Energy sector. 

1. Production and sales of potassium chloride of *ST Salt Lake during the reporting period were stable. Part of the 20,000 mt project of its subsidiary Lanke Lithium has been put into operation, and output of lithium carbonate has increased compared with the same period last year. Affected by the increase in commodity prices, the company’s performance improved as the prices of potassium chloride and lithium carbonate products rose.

Lanke Lithium made full use of the original 10,000 mt project's main lithium-sinking plant and supporting facilities to optimise and upgrade the core equipment, increasing capacity of the original 10,000 mt project's main lithium-sinking plant from a maximum of 50 mt/day to 90 mt/day . At present, the 20,000 mt project has been put into trial operation, with a daily production of high-lithium mother liquor with 100 mt of lithium carbonate equivalent. Lanke Lithium is the largest salt lake industrial carbon supplier in China, and mainly supplies traders. As the temperature rises and the technology for extracting lithium from salt lakes continues to improve, domestic salt lake for extracting lithium will reach a high supply point in September, and supply will decrease in October.

2. Farasis Energy held a ceremony for the production of "A29 Power Battery Assembly System”. The product is a motive battery assembly product for GAC Aion S Plus. The production of the product means that Farasis Energy has begun to deliver motive batteries to GAC Aion S Plus in batches.

GAC Aion S Plus is an upgraded model of Aion S. The latter is a star model promoted by GAC Aion which achieved cumulative sales of over 100,000 vehicles in May. The Aion S Plus launched by GAC Aion has not only upgraded the original configuration of the Aion S, but also added the third-generation flexible electrochromic technology panoramic canopy and the 4.0 version of ADIGO smart driving interconnection. Ecosystem and other key software and hardware, and with the support of Farasis Energy's high-energy density battery pack close to 180 Wh/Kg, the cruising range has exceeded 600 km. However, the price after subsidy has not seen a significant increase compared with Aion S, which is expected to continue the previous hot sales of Aion S, driving demand for Farasis Energy battery to increase.

3. Shenzhen Dynanonic’s nano-lithium iron phosphate project with an annual output of 40,000 mt was put into production in Qujing on July 5. Total investment of the project is 1 billion yuan and the main body of implementation is Qujing Dynanonic. The trial production spans six months from January to July. The commissioning of the production line will slightly alleviate the current shortage of lithium iron phosphate capacity.

Lithium iron phosphate batteries have gradually penetrated from A00-class models to mid-to-high-end models. Output of lithium iron phosphate batteries reached 8.8 Gwh in May, accounting for 63.6% of the total output. That boosted demand for upstream materials. According to SMM data, total domestic output of lithium iron phosphate from January to May 2021 reached 122,500 mt, a sharp increase of 236% compared with the same period last year. Most companies in the industry are close to full production but supply of lithium iron phosphate remains tight. The 40,000 mt lithium iron phosphate project will increase capacity at Dynanonic to a high of 120,000 mt/year, which will relieve the current tight supply of lithium iron phosphate.