Analysis of the current situation and development trend of China's lead-acid battery industry market supply and demand in 2021 Lithium battery replacement will become more and more obvious

China's lead-acid battery communication field demand will decline

Since the implementation of the industrial product production license system in the lead-acid battery industry in 2003, the state has issued a series of environmental protection policies and standards for the manufacturing and recycling of the lead-acid battery industry. Acid battery industry concentration and industrial upgrading.

At present, with the transformation of my country's economic growth mode, the country's environmental protection requirements for the lead-acid battery industry will increase day by day. In recent years, the output of lead-acid batteries in my country has been relatively stable, but with the acceleration of 5G network construction, the disadvantages of lead-acid batteries have gradually emerged, and the demand in the field of communications will decline.

1. A number of policies have been promulgated to regulate the development of the lead-acid battery industry

In recent years, my country has successively promulgated a number of policies to regulate the development of the lead-acid battery industry, adjust the industrial structure, eliminate backward production capacity enterprises, improve the entry threshold of the industry, and strengthen the rectification of industry pollution. Since 2017, there have been two main lines in the country's policy formulation for China's lead-acid battery industry.

A main line is for the formulation of tax policies for the recycling and utilization of waste lead-acid batteries. The reason for the formulation is that the taxation of traditional recycled lead enterprises is about 11%, while the taxation of private lead recycling enterprises is only about 2%-4%, and there are even individual enterprises. , the new battery invoice is deducted as the input for the sale of the old battery. The above phenomenon not only caused the country to lose tax revenue, but also caused the phenomenon of "bad money drives good money" in the lead-acid storage industry.

Under this main line, the "Administrative Measures for Hazardous Waste Business Licenses (Revised Draft") clarifies that a 3% low tax rate support policy is adopted to reasonably control the national waste lead-acid battery recycling tax source from the perspective of taxation. The "Pilot Work Plan for the Centralized Collection and Cross-regional Transfer System of Lead-acid Battery Manufacturers" was issued to further standardize the recycling process of lead-acid batteries.

Another main line is the technical main line, which is reflected in the formulation of the national standard for lead-acid batteries. In 2018, the competent department issued the "New National Standard for Batteries", which clarified the direction of the "lightweight and high-energy" technical transformation of the lead-acid battery industry, and used this as an auxiliary management method to promote the new national standard for electric bicycles.

Subsequently, "Valve-regulated lead-acid batteries for electric bicycles" was released, which clarified the direction of "lightweight and high-energy" technical transformation of the lead-acid battery industry, and used this as an auxiliary management method to promote the new national standard for electric bicycles. The development situation of the industry is severe, and it can be predicted from the feedback of some front-line electric bicycle dealers that the relevant management and control will be stricter in the future, and the industry environment will be more severe.

2. China's lead-acid battery output is relatively stable

In recent years, the output of lead-acid batteries in my country has been relatively stable, maintaining above 200 million kVA. According to data released by the China Light Industry Information Center, my country's lead-acid battery output in 2019 was 2,024.89 million kVA, a year-on-year increase of 4%. In 2020, my country's lead-acid battery output was 227.36 million kVA, a year-on-year increase of 12.28%. .

From a structural point of view, domestic lead-acid battery production is mainly concentrated in Zhejiang, Hubei and Hebei, and the lead-acid battery production in these three places accounts for about 55% of the national total; The proportion of output is more than 5%, and the output of lead-acid batteries in other regions is less than 5%.

The province with the highest domestic lead-acid battery production is Zhejiang Province, accounting for 30% of the country's total lead-acid battery production; followed by Hubei Province, accounting for 13%; Hebei Province's output ranks third, accounting for 12%.

3. The demand for lead-acid batteries in the communication field will decline

The lead-acid battery used in the communication field is the key infrastructure in the communication network, mainly used in the communication exchange office, the DC system of the base station power supply, etc. 2019 is considered to be the first year of 5G development, and mainstream operators have accelerated the deployment of 5G networks. Since 2020, the Chinese government has intensively deployed 5G and other new infrastructure projects. China will lead the world and rapidly promote the construction of 5G networks. On January 26, 2020, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology released data that over 600,000 new 5G base stations will be opened in my country in 2020. At the same time, this also puts forward higher requirements for batteries used in base stations. The disadvantages of lead-acid batteries are gradually emerging, and various operators have begun to turn to lithium batteries.

Compared with the lead-acid batteries used in 4G base stations, lithium iron phosphate batteries have obvious advantages in terms of safety, cycle life, and fast charging and discharging. At present, the most suitable technical route for domestic 5G base station energy storage batteries. Industry insiders pointed out that it is the general trend that the backup power battery of the communication base station will gradually replace the lead-acid battery by the lithium iron phosphate battery.

From a technical perspective, lithium iron phosphate batteries have long cycle life, fast charge and discharge speed, and strong high temperature resistance, which can reduce operating costs and improve operating efficiency for 5G base stations. Generally, the cycle life of lead-acid batteries is 3-5 years, and the number of charge and discharge times is 500-600 times, while the cycle life of lithium iron phosphate batteries is more than 10 years, and the number of times of charge and discharge is more than 3,000 times. That is to say, in the whole life cycle of the base station If the lead-acid battery is used, the battery needs to be replaced, while the lithium iron phosphate battery does not need to be replaced.

Although the cost of lithium iron phosphate battery is 1-2 times higher than that of lead-acid battery at this stage, the cost of lithium iron phosphate battery is only 1/3 of that of lead-acid battery under the service life of 5000 cycles. From the perspective of long-term economic benefits, lithium iron phosphate batteries have a lower cost of use.

Due to the strong support of national policies, such as the "lightweight" of batteries caused by the new national standard, the amount of lead is directly reduced. Lithium elevator secondary batteries are gradually replacing lead-acid batteries. In 2020, China Tower will not use lead-acid batteries at all. Earlier, China Mobile Communications Group Co., Ltd. also announced that it plans to purchase a total of 610.2 million Ah (3.2V specification) of lithium iron phosphate batteries for communications of no more than 2.508 billion yuan.

According to public information, in 2020, the demand for lithium iron phosphate for newly built and renovated 5G base stations will be about 10GWh. In the future, the market demand for lithium iron phosphate batteries will continue to increase, and the demand for lead batteries will continue to decline. Generally, the service life of domestic communication base station batteries is 5 years. According to the calculation that a base station is equipped with 2 sets of 48V400Ah lead-acid batteries, the demand for each base station is 38.4Kvah. Therefore, according to forward-looking calculations, in 2020, the demand for lead-acid batteries for new base stations in my country's communication field will further drop to 23.04 million kVA.

However, although lithium iron phosphate batteries have been widely used in 5G base stations, and their application technology has reached the existing 5G base station backup battery standards, it will take time to realize the large-scale application of lithium iron phosphate batteries in base stations. The existing lead-acid batteries have not been fully retired, and it will take at least 5-8 years for lithium iron phosphate batteries to replace all lead-acid batteries.

In addition, the high technical threshold for recycling lithium iron phosphate batteries, the complex recycling process, and the limited recycling value also limit the large-scale development of lithium iron phosphate batteries. The recycling process of lead-acid batteries is mature, and the recycling process is simple and has certain economic benefits. sex.

Therefore, on the whole, lithium electrification will become a trend in some application scenarios, but in occasions with large power consumption and high safety requirements, lead-acid batteries still have irreplaceable advantages, but with the development of lithium battery technology and safety With continuous improvement, the replacement of lead-acid batteries by lithium batteries will become more and more obvious.

Overall, in the field of communications, the demand for lead-acid batteries for base stations in my country will gradually decline, but it will take a certain amount of time to completely replace lead-acid batteries with lithium batteries.

For more research and analysis of this industry, please refer to the "China Lead-acid Battery Industry Market Prospect and Investment Strategic Planning Analysis Report" by the Prospective Industry Research Institute. At the same time, the Prospective Industry Research Institute provides industrial big data, industrial planning, industrial application, industrial park planning, and industrial investment promotion. Solutions such as investment attraction, IPO fundraising feasibility study, and prospectus writing.