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. The strict implementation of environmental protection and industry access policies is conducive to lead Concentration and upgrading of the acid battery industry.
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 continue to increase. 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 appeared, and the demand in the communications field will decline.
Multiple policies promulgated to regulate industry development
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of policies to regulate the development of the lead-acid battery industry, adjust the industrial structure, eliminate outdated production enterprises, raise the industry’s entry barriers, and strengthen the efforts to rectify industry pollution. Since 2017, the state has formulated two main lines for policy formulation of China's lead-acid battery industry.
One mainline is to formulate tax policies for the recycling and utilization of waste lead-acid batteries. The reason for the formulation is that the tax revenue of traditional recycled lead companies is about 11%, while the tax revenue of private lead recycling companies is only about 2%-4%, and there are even individual companies. , Deduct the new battery invoice as the input for the sale of used batteries. The above phenomenon not only caused the country to lose tax revenue, but also caused the phenomenon of "bad money driving good money" in the lead-acid storage industry.
Under this mainline, the "Administrative Measures for Hazardous Waste Business License (Revised Draft") clarified that the 3% low tax rate support policy will be adopted to reasonably control the national waste lead-acid battery recycling tax source from a tax perspective. The "Pilot Work Plan for the Centralized Collection and Cross-Regional Transfer System for Lead-acid Battery Manufacturers" issued further regulates the recycling process of lead-acid batteries.
Another mainline is the technical main line, which is embodied in the formulation of national standards for lead-acid batteries. In 2018, the competent authority issued the "New National Standard for Batteries", which clarified the direction of "lightweight and high-energy" technological transformation in the lead-acid battery industry, and used this as an auxiliary management method to promote the new national standard for electric bicycles.
Subsequently, the "Valve Regulated Lead-Acid Battery for Electric Bicycles" was released, clarifying the direction of the "lightweight and high-energy" technological transformation of the lead-acid battery industry, and using 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 in the future, relevant control and control will be stricter, and the industry environment will be more severe.
In recent years, the output of lead-acid batteries has been relatively stable
In recent years, the output of lead-acid batteries in my country has been relatively stable, maintaining above 200 million kVAh. According to the data released by the China Light Industry Information Center, my country's lead-acid battery output in 2019 was 2.024.89 million kVAh, an increase of 4% year-on-year. In 2020, my country's lead-acid battery output was 227.36 million kVAh, an increase of 12.28% year-on-year.
From a structural point of view, the domestic lead-acid battery output is mainly concentrated in Zhejiang, Hubei, and Hebei. The output of lead-acid batteries in these three places accounts for about 55% of the total output of the country; in addition, the lead-acid batteries in Jiangsu, Anhui, and Guangdong The output accounts for 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 output is Zhejiang Province, which accounts for 30% of the country’s total lead-acid battery output; Hubei Province is second with a share of 13%; Hebei Province’s output ranks third, with a share of 12%.
Demand for lead-acid batteries in the communications field will decline
The lead-acid battery used in the communication field is a key infrastructure in the communication network, which is mainly used for the DC system of the communication exchange office and base station power supply. 2019 is considered 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. The country will lead the world and rapidly advance the construction of 5G networks. On January 26, 2020, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology released data that my country will open more than 600,000 5G base stations in 2020. At the same time, this also puts forward higher requirements on batteries used in base stations, and the disadvantages of lead-acid batteries have gradually emerged, and 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, fast charging and discharging, etc., which can reduce dependence on mains capacity expansion and transformation, and reduce network construction and operating costs. Currently the most suitable technical route for domestic 5G base station energy storage batteries. Industry insiders pointed out that the replacement of lead-acid batteries by lithium iron phosphate batteries for communication base station backup power batteries is a general trend.
From technical analysis, the lithium iron phosphate battery has a 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 charging and discharging is 500-600 times, while the cycle life of lithium iron phosphate batteries is more than 10 years, and the number of charging and discharging is more than 3000 times. Internally, if lead-acid batteries are used, they need to be replaced, while lithium iron phosphate batteries do not need to be replaced.
Although the cost of lithium iron phosphate batteries is 1-2 times higher than that of lead-acid batteries at this stage, the cost of lithium iron phosphate batteries is only 1/3 of that of lead-acid batteries under the service life of a 5000-cycle system. From the perspective of long-term economic benefits, the use cost of lithium iron phosphate batteries is lower.
Due to the strong support of national policies, for example, the new national standard has led to the "lightweight" of batteries, which directly reduces the amount of lead. While lithium elevator secondary batteries are gradually replacing lead batteries, China Tower will not use lead batteries at all in 2020. Earlier, China Mobile Communications Group Co., Ltd. also issued an announcement that it plans to purchase a total of 610.2 million Ah (specification 3.2V) of lithium iron phosphate batteries for communications that do not exceed 2.508 billion yuan.
Public information shows that in 2020, the demand for lithium iron phosphate for newly built and renovated 5G base stations is about 10 GWh. In the future, the 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 the battery of a domestic communication base station is 5 years. According to a base station equipped with two sets of 48V400Ah lead-acid batteries, the demand for each base station is 38.4Kvah. Therefore, forward-looking calculations, in 2020, the scale of demand for lead-acid batteries for new base stations in my country's communications field will further drop to 23.04 million kVAh.
Note: Since the Bureau of Statistics and related industry associations only count the output of lead-acid batteries per year, forward-looking, based on the lead-acid battery output data provided by the National Bureau of Statistics and the development trend of the communication industry, the scale of demand for new lead-acid batteries for base stations in the communication field Carry out the calculation, this is the calculation data.
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 yet been fully decommissioned, and it will take at least 5-8 years for the lithium iron phosphate batteries to completely replace the lead-acid batteries.
In addition, the high threshold of the recycling technology of lithium iron phosphate batteries, the complex recycling process, and the limited recycling value have also restricted the large-scale development of lithium iron phosphate batteries. The recycling process of lead-acid batteries is mature, and its recycling process is simple, which is economical. Sex.
Therefore, on the whole, lithium-ionization 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.
On the whole, in the field of communications, the scale of demand for lead-acid batteries for base stations in my country will gradually decline, but it will take some time to realize the complete replacement of lead-acid batteries by lithium batteries.
