Lithium iron phosphate welcomes the great opportunity again! China Tower / Telecom to start new procurement of backup batteries

SMM News: with the accelerated arrival of the 5G era, the matching 5G base stations are also launching "new infrastructure" on a large scale. As several major national telecom operators accelerate the construction of energy storage of 5G base stations, the demand for lithium iron phosphate batteries that meet the needs of 5G base stations has surged sharply, and lithium iron phosphate batteries have ushered in a broad field.

Recently, China Tower and China Telecom announced that China Tower and China Telecom will jointly organize the procurement of lithium iron phosphate batteries for power preparation, in order to improve procurement efficiency and ensure product quality, the two sides will jointly start the first batch of regular testing of lithium iron phosphate battery products for power backup.

It is required that the supplier should be the manufacturer of lithium iron phosphate battery pack products, with independent production capacity of lithium iron phosphate cell, and the sample type is lithium iron phosphate battery pack (integrated) standby power 48V/100Ah. The testing of lithium iron phosphate battery for standby power is divided into three parts: system, BMS and platform access. In terms of safety performance, the battery should not catch fire or explode under the conditions of anti-overcharge, deep Discharge, anti-impact, anti-high temperature, anti-short circuit, etc.

It is reported that under the general trend of 5G base station construction, the procurement of lithium iron phosphate batteries for backup electricity has become a large expenditure for China's iron towers. As early as March 11 this year, China Iron Tower issued the "2020 intensive Purchasing Project announcement for Lithium Iron Phosphate Battery products for standby Power", which will invite tenders for the procurement of 2GWh lithium iron phosphate battery packs. Finally, five enterprises, namely Shuangdeng Group, Nandu Power supply, Penghui Energy, Zhongtian Science and Technology and Shengyang Power supply, won the bid.

Prior to the China Tower, on March 4, China Mobile announced that it would purchase lithium iron phosphate battery products for 1.95GWh communications at a maximum price of more than 2.5 billion yuan, and eight enterprises won the bid, namely: Zhongtian Science and Technology, Haisida, Shuangdeng Group, Yiwei Lithium Energy, Nandu Power supply, Xiongtao Power supply, Guangyu Power supply, Lilang Battery, the lowest bid price was about 0.661 yuan / Wh, won the total price of 1.368 billion yuan.

Lithium iron phosphate has become the "darling" of the 5G era.

Industry analysts believe that the maturity and application of 5G technology has opened up a new broad market for lithium iron phosphate batteries. At present, the traditional communication base station mainly uses lead-acid battery, but the battery has the advantages of short service life, low performance, and high requirements for computer room environment and later maintenance. The test data show that the power consumption of 5G base station is almost 2 to 3 times that of 4G base station, and the excellent characteristics of lithium iron phosphate with high energy, long life, low cost and high security meet this demand.

"generally speaking, the cycle life of lead-acid batteries is 3-5 years, and the number of charges and discharges is 500 times, while the cycle life of lithium iron phosphate batteries is more than 10 years, and the number of charge and discharge times is more than 3000 times. In other words, in the whole life cycle of the base station, if lead-acid batteries are used, the batteries need to be replaced, while lithium iron phosphate batteries do not need to be replaced." The person in charge of Shanghai Electric Guoxuan New Energy Technology Co., Ltd. said.

It is understood that the Chinese tower has stopped purchasing lead-acid batteries since 2018 and uniformly uses lithium iron phosphate batteries as the backup power system of the base station. However, in the past, China's iron towers were still dominated by the recycling of automotive decommissioned lithium iron phosphate batteries. By the end of 2018, China Tower had used about 1.5GWhladder batteries in about 120000 base stations in 31 provinces, cities and autonomous regions across the country, replacing about 45000 tons of lead-acid batteries; in 2019, about 5GWhs of lithium iron phosphate batteries were added to the backup power supply of China's tower base stations, and about 150000 tons of lead-acid batteries were replaced.

By the end of September this year, China had built a total of 690000 5G base stations, of which as early as February this year, China's iron towers had built a total of 200000 5G base stations. In addition, according to the goal of China Mobile, China Unicom and China Telecom, 600000 5G base stations will be opened by the end of this year. The large-scale application of 5G technology will require the construction of a larger number of base stations, coupled with the upgrading of existing 3G/4G communication base stations, will provide more space for the demand for lithium iron phosphate, and the demand for lithium iron phosphate batteries in the 5G base station market will be sustainable.

"the demand for energy storage batteries in 5G base stations can be said to give the entire energy storage industry an excellent opportunity for development." Industry experts said that due to the 5G base station on the power system put forward a great demand for capacity expansion. This means that almost all the current computer rooms of operators must transform the power supply system to ensure power supply. Including switching power supply, battery, power cord have to be replaced. Lithium iron phosphate battery is the best choice at present, so operators are also in the bidding layout.

It is worth noting that in recent years, some enterprises that focus on lithium iron phosphate batteries for vehicles have also begun to join the power market of communication base stations. For example, in November last year, the 5G new energy industry base project of Guoxuan Hi-Tech 7GWh was established in Tangshan. It is reported that the project will mainly produce lithium iron phosphate batteries for 5G communication power supplies. In addition, several giants involved in iron phosphate lithium batteries, such as BYD and Yiwei Lithium Energy, have also entered the market one after another.

According to the deployment of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, China will achieve 5G commercial use in 2020. It can be predicted that with the comprehensive commercial use of 5G network in China, lithium electrification of backup power supply for communication base stations, lithium battery will usher in a new huge incremental market, and promote the development of power battery echelon utilization.

According to Tianfeng Securities, from 2020 to 2023, the backup power storage requirements brought by 5G base stations are 7.6GWh, 9.7GWh, 10.8GWh and 11.9GWh, respectively. In addition, with the use of lithium battery with high energy density, the application space of 5G base station energy storage battery is extended, and the capacity of energy storage battery is higher, which can be used not only as a backup power source, but also for time-of-use electricity price "peak cutting and valley filling". Industry insiders pointed out that if the "5G + energy storage peak shaving" is realized, it will lead to a further substantial increase in the demand for lithium iron phosphate energy storage batteries.