Prospects of China's Iron Tower Power Lithium Battery Recycling Industry
The combination of market and policy is opening up a blue ocean in the field of power lithium-ion battery recycling, and around this, China's iron towers, as a major application user, are "racing to encircle the land".
The future power lithium-ion battery recycling market will be a blue ocean, and whoever can plan and prepare for it in the future can seize the opportunity and freely explore the blue ocean. "This week, Liu Guofeng, Vice General Manager of China Iron Tower and Chairman of Iron Tower Energy Co., Ltd., stated at a power lithium-ion battery recycling forum organized by him.
From the perspective of battery installation scale, the production and sales of new energy vehicles in China have continued to rise rapidly for many years, maintaining the world's first place. As of the first half of this year, the number of new energy vehicles in China reached 3.44 million, a year-on-year increase of 1.45 million, an increase of 72.85%. The assembly volume of power batteries exceeded 174GWh, a year-on-year increase of 71GWh or 68.93%.
From the perspective of the number of retired batteries, based on the 5-8 year service life of automotive power lithium-ion batteries, the power lithium-ion batteries put into production and launched in 2014 entered a mass scrap period starting from 2019. According to industry estimates, the retirement volume of power lithium-ion batteries this year will reach 63900 tons, and the recycling volume will skyrocket to 25GWh (approximately 200000 tons) by 2020, and approximately 116GWh (approximately 780000 tons) by 2025. The increasing number of retired lithium-ion batteries will drive the rapid explosion of the recycling industry.
From the perspective of battery retirement market size, the power lithium-ion battery recycling market size will reach 5 billion yuan this year, exceed 10 billion yuan in 2020, and climb to 38 billion yuan in 2025.
The policy level has also given sufficient impetus.
On January 26, 2018, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology and seven other ministries jointly issued the "Interim Measures for the Management of the Recycling and Utilization of New Energy Vehicle Power Batteries", encouraging relevant companies to jointly build and share recycling channels for retired power lithium-ion batteries, and to carry out multi-level and multi-purpose rational utilization of waste power lithium-ion batteries based on the principle of first cascade utilization and then recycling.
On July 3, 2018, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology released the "Interim Regulations on the Traceability Management of New Energy Vehicle Power Battery Recycling and Utilization", which comprehensively deployed the traceability management of China's new energy vehicle power battery recycling and utilization, and monitored the performance of recycling responsibilities by various stakeholders.
On July 25, 2018, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology and seven other ministries jointly announced the "Notice on Doing a Good Job in the Pilot Work of Recycling and Utilization of New Energy Vehicle Power Batteries", officially identifying 17 provinces, cities, and China's iron towers as pilot areas and companies, encouraging the exploration of market-oriented recycling and utilization models with strong technological economy and resource environment friendliness.
On September 5, 2018, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology announced the first batch of companies listed in the "Industry Standard Conditions for the Comprehensive Utilization of Waste Power Batteries in New Energy Vehicles", promoting industry management for the comprehensive utilization of waste power lithium-ion batteries.
The announcement and implementation of the above series of measures and standards marks the completion of the top-level system for recycling and utilization, and the full implementation phase of power lithium-ion battery recycling. The rapid development of new energy vehicles and the dual drive of national policy dividends have opened up a vast blue ocean for the power lithium-ion battery recycling industry.
Located on nearly 2 million tower site resources nationwide, China Tower, the world's largest communication tower infrastructure service provider, is implementing the "One Body, Two Wings" strategic layout, extending from the "One Body" oriented tower and room business in the communication industry to the "Two Wings" oriented energy services, cross industry site applications, and information services.
And among them, relying on the huge demand for retired lithium-ion batteries related to base station energy storage, China's iron towers have shown great ambition in this field. Since 2018, both new and existing base stations have stopped purchasing lead-acid batteries and switched to using cascade power lithium-ion batteries to meet their needs. At the same time, we are carrying out recycling system construction in 17 provinces and cities across the country, exploring process traversal and business models.
In terms of cascade utilization, China's iron towers have become the main channel for the cascade utilization of retired power lithium-ion batteries nationwide, with the first being large-scale application. As of now, the usage of cascade batteries in China's iron towers has exceeded 4Gwh, equivalent to the retirement of 100000 electric passenger vehicles, achieving good social and economic benefits. The second is in terms of standards. China's iron towers have established a series of technical standards for the cascade utilization of retired lithium-ion batteries, filling a gap in China. The third is safety and reliability. China's iron towers have achieved "visible, manageable, and controllable" cascade utilization of power lithium-ion batteries through technological means, ensuring that cascade batteries can be safely and reliably used, with traceable sources and traceable destinations.
In terms of battery recycling, it has developed the "Implementation Method for Recycling Power Lithium Ion Batteries from Retired Iron Towers in China (Trial)", which provides a detailed explanation of the recycling process, rights and responsibilities interface, policies and regulations, and has carried out two batches of recycling pilot work in 17 provinces and regions across the country. On the basis of the pilot project, it established power lithium-ion battery recycling and innovation centers in July this year in Huizhou, Guangdong, Xinxiang, Henan, Nantong, Jiangsu, and Mianyang, Sichuan. The recycling and innovation centers in Yinchuan, Ningxia and Shenyang, Liaoning are also actively preparing. Each center coordinates the recycling of retired batteries in various provinces and cities within the region, and closely cooperates with testing and processing companies to conduct testing and processing in accordance with our company's specifications, forming finished products that meet the needs of various provinces and cities in the region.
In terms of external expansion, based on the company's resource and capability advantages, as well as relevant experience in large-scale recycling, China Tower Energy Co., Ltd. was established on June 5th this year, with a registered capital of 5 billion RMB.
It is reported that Iron Tower Energy relies heavily on the relevant experience, scale procurement advantages, professional maintenance capabilities, and visual, manageable, and controllable intelligent monitoring systems of China's iron tower power lithium-ion batteries for backup power use. With high energy efficiency power lithium-ion batteries as the carrier, it is important to provide backup power, power generation, charging, and replacement for financial, transportation, medical, low-speed electric vehicle customer groups, and general industrial and commercial users Build a national specialized company for power security and energy services, including energy storage and other power security and energy services.