A new round of battery expansion has hit the internationalized "competition" of lithium power equipment.

At present, a new round of global power battery capacity expansion is still continuing, and the scale is also considerable, which will lead to a new round of demand for lithium power equipment.

According to incomplete statistics of Battery China, in the first quarter of this year, the investment in new global power and energy storage battery projects was as high as 386.67 billion yuan, with a planned capacity exceeding 710GWh and far exceeding the same period in 2021.

The new round of battery capacity expansion investment, on the one hand, is mainly in the international market, such as LG New Energy, SK on, Vision Power in North America, Volkswagen, Northvolt, Yiwei Lithium Energy in Europe have all carried out dozens of GWh of new project planning and layout; on the other hand, large-scale capacity layout has not been carried out before, but the power and energy storage business is developing rapidly, such as BYD, Jiwei Power, Xin Wanda, Ruipu Energy and other intensive production expansion in the first quarter of this year.

In the context of the rapid expansion of overseas markets and domestic late-development forces, orders for lithium-ion equipment have also begun to come on a large scale.

On April 9, Hangke Technology received an order notice from SK On that it would provide lithium-ion equipment for SK On's battery manufacturing bases in Hungary and Yancheng, China, with a total order amount of about 730 million yuan. In March this year, Liyuanheng won a full-line order for new energy intelligence, a listed power battery company in North America.

In addition, in the case of breakthroughs in innovative technology, some battery enterprises have taken the lead in the layout of new battery technology and large-scale capacity planning based on the research and judgment of the future market.

Recently, Ningbo founder said that the company and Bic battery signed a strategic cooperation and long-term supply agreement, the two sides will carry out comprehensive and in-depth cooperation in the field of precision lithium battery components. The agreement stipulates that the two sides will cooperate to formulate product development plans and cooperate on the technological research and development of new products, including, but not limited to, precision structural components of lithium battery products such as 4680.

It is reported that Bick Battery is expected to purchase about 30 million precision structural components of power batteries from Ningbo founder from 2022 to 2023, and from 2023 to 2025, Bick Battery will purchase precision lithium battery components with an annual value of no less than 400 million yuan from Ningbo founder.

In fact, since the second half of 2020, the major domestic power battery companies have launched a large-scale production expansion plan. By the end of 2021, the domestic head battery enterprises plan that the battery capacity will reach 3000GWh by 2025. According to the calculation that the investment of single GWh equipment of power battery is about 200 million yuan, the corresponding market scale of lithium battery equipment will reach 600 billion yuan.

As mentioned earlier, in the first quarter of 2022 alone, the global 710GWh's new power battery plan, the corresponding lithium equipment orders reached 142 billion yuan.

At present, Europe is undergoing a rapid transformation of electrification, and has become the second largest electric vehicle market in the world. Since the beginning of this year, the pace of electrification in North America has also accelerated and will become a new incremental market for electric vehicles. Tesla, GM, Ford, Volkswagen, Daimler, Toyota, Stellantis, Rivian and other auto companies have also made clear the goal of electrification in the North American market in 2025 and 2030, and the policy support of the US government for electrification is also increasing.

International mainstream car companies and major countries have accelerated in the field of electrification, and it is expected that the new round of overseas battery capacity layout will be faster than that of the Chinese market, thus driving the lithium equipment market to enter a new growth cycle. The pace of internationalization of domestic lithium equipment enterprises is also accelerated.

After more than a decade of rapid development, China's lithium battery and equipment industry chain enterprises have a relatively strong competitiveness, for example, in the battery end, including Ningde era, Vision Power, Yiwei Lithium Energy, Funeng Technology, Honeycomb Energy, Guoxuan Hi-Tech and other enterprises have won the long order of international automobile enterprises one after another; and many enterprises have set up factories in Europe. Equipment side, in the past two years, leading intelligence, Yinghe Technology, Hangke Technology and other lithium equipment enterprises have won large overseas orders and continued to increase. Chinese battery and equipment companies have more and more influence in overseas markets.

From the perspective of "going out" of domestic lithium power equipment, there are mainly two ways: first, domestic battery enterprises have set up factories at sea one after another, which will release a huge demand for domestic lithium power equipment procurement. For example, at present, many domestic lithium equipment enterprises, including pilot Intelligence, Yinhe Technology, Haimu Laser, Nebula shares, Lianwin Laser, Xianhui Technology, Haoneng Technology and so on, have won the equipment orders brought by the establishment of a factory in Germany in the Ningde era.

Second, the demand for Chinese lithium battery equipment in factories jointly built by overseas car companies and overseas battery enterprises. It is worth noting that this path also poses some new challenges for Chinese equipment enterprises to "go out to sea". For example, some American enterprises have new demand for production capacity, process, cost and so on; German enterprises pay attention to zero defect and zero risk.

Therefore, for lithium power equipment enterprises, while seizing the opportunity brought by global electrification, they also need to consider and judge some practical problems of "globalization path":

1. The construction of large-scale battery projects requires equipment enterprises to have strong delivery capacity.

Europe and North America, as the second of the three largest automobile markets in the world, under the background of electrification transformation, the demand for power batteries will be hundreds of GWh growth, the release of lithium equipment orders are huge. How to deliver high-quality, stable, on-time and even cross-regional delivery will become the main topic that equipment enterprises need to study and overcome.

2. Greatly reduce the investment cost per unit capacity and improve the level of equipment intelligence and integration.

With the acceleration of global automobile electrification, new requirements will be put forward for the demand, manufacturing efficiency and cost reduction of power batteries. After years of iteration and steady progress, the Chinese market wants to participate in large-scale competition in the global market. How to reduce the investment cost and manufacturing cost of large-scale battery manufacturing will put forward higher requirements for equipment enterprises.

3. New technology and new technology will bring new requirements for equipment.

Take 46 series large cylindrical battery as an example, it puts forward new requirements for production efficiency and manufacturing technology. At present, this product is being laid out, including Tesla, Yiwei Lithium Energy, Panasonic Battery, LG New Energy, Bic Battery and so on. The application of similar new technology also puts forward more requirements for equipment production efficiency, process innovation, intelligent production and so on. Lithium power equipment will develop in the direction of process innovation, equipment integration and intelligence, and continue to advance to extreme manufacturing.

4. International service response and integration ability.

Industry insiders point out that the traditional customization mode of lithium power equipment has high cost and inconvenient after-sales maintenance. in order to participate in the European and American vehicle and battery manufacturing system, domestic equipment enterprises need to combine their own advantages and the needs of European and American clients, integrate and innovate, and finally find their own international path.

In the next few years, the wave of overseas power battery expansion will have a strong demand for lithium power equipment. Chinese equipment enterprises have outstanding advantages in technological innovation, talent team building, product performance improvement, supply chain integration and cost reduction, as well as responding to enterprise demand and product delivery. Whether we can take advantage of this advantage will depend on the competitiveness of lithium power equipment enterprises in talent, technology, production capacity, market, supply chain and so on.