Introduction of high nickel ternary battery
At present, the development route of power lithium batteries is undergoing a change.
Before 2017, the market chose lithium iron phosphate batteries as the mainstream technology, and the requirements of new energy vehicles for battery energy density are a process of continuous improvement, and the industry will continue to change and choose accordingly.
The upper limit of the energy density of lithium iron phosphate batteries is about 160Wh/kg. The industry expects that by 2020, the energy density standard of power batteries will reach more than 300Wh/kg, which is difficult for lithium iron phosphate batteries to achieve.
On the other hand, at the current technical level, the actual average energy density of ternary batteries can reach between 180-190Wh/kg, and there is also a large room for improvement in the future.
Policy is also increasing. In February this year, four ministries including the Ministry of Finance, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, the Ministry of Science and Technology, and the National Development and Reform Commission issued a document to adjust the financial subsidy policy for new energy vehicles, raising the energy density threshold for pure electric passenger vehicles, non-fast-charging pure electric passenger vehicles, and special-purpose vehicle power battery systems. Require.
It is expected that the ternary battery will catch up with the lithium iron phosphate market capacity and become the mainstream starting this year, and will achieve continuous incremental substitution in the future market, occupying a dominant position.
High-nickel ternary capacity layout and mass production progress
Specific to the field of ternary battery cathode materials, high-nickel materials have the advantage of higher energy density. Secondly, it is estimated that after using high-nickel materials, the comprehensive unit cost of the battery will decrease by more than 8%, and the cost advantage is obvious.
The fluctuations in cobalt prices brought about by the contradiction between supply and demand are also boosting manufacturers to turn to low-cobalt and high-nickel products. The cost of cobalt raw materials in ternary cathode materials is relatively high, and its price continued to rise in 2018. Compared with 520,000 yuan/ton at the beginning of the first quarter, the increase in April was more than 20%. As of April 13, cobalt The price has reached 674,000 yuan / ton.
Under the demand for cost reduction and efficiency enhancement, the high-nickel ternary NCM811 product, which has the most advantages to support the aforementioned 300Wh/kg target, debuted with a halo.
Although there are still manufacturers who claim to adhere to the lithium iron phosphate battery route, the market is actively promoting the layout of battery technology with higher energy density. Since 2017, domestic cathode material manufacturers have successively deployed high-nickel products, and these production capacities are expected to be supplied to the market in 2018. In particular, the production capacity and output of NCM811 products have attracted high attention.
In terms of domestic power battery companies, CATL, BYD, Jiangxi Funeng, BAK Battery, Guoxuan Hi-Tech, Tianjin Lishen, Penghui Energy and other companies have all carried out R&D and production of NCM811 batteries. Among them, BAK Battery announced that it has mass-produced the NCM811 cylindrical power battery with an energy density of 232Wh/kg, and said that a 300Wh/kg product will be available soon. Penghui Energy also revealed that the company's cylindrical batteries using NCM811 materials have been mass-produced and supplied to relevant OEMs.
Several Constraining Factors for Accelerating High Volume
Although it is generally optimistic, the large-scale application of high-nickel NCM811 products in the field of automotive power batteries still has a long way to go. At present, the application of NCM811 products in new energy vehicles is only a few cases.
In October last year, the JAC iEV7S, which participated in the National Mass Production Vehicle Performance Competition, was equipped with BAK's 18650-2.75Ah battery cell products, becoming the first case of the application of NCM811 products in new energy vehicles in China.
Internationally, the KonaEV pure electric SUV recently released by South Korea's Hyundai is equipped with NCM811 battery cells provided by LG Chem, but the model has not yet been mass-produced for sale.
At this stage, there are still the following bottlenecks in the accelerated application and volume of high-nickel products:
Raw materials are scarce. Lithium, cobalt and nickel resources are relatively scarce in China. At this stage, domestic high-nickel raw materials mainly rely on imports, which are easily restrained by external factors. With the growth of the power battery industry, relevant experts predict that lithium, cobalt and nickel will be in shortage in 2021, 2022 and 2019, respectively.
Manufacturing capacity constraints. The production process of high-nickel ternary materials is relatively complex, and has high requirements on production equipment and environment. The existing production line cannot be directly used as NCM811 or NCA production line, and needs to be redesigned and constructed, adding a lot of capital investment. It can be said that there is currently no mature preparation technology and large-scale mass production capacity in China, and there will even be a certain amount of capacity gap in the next three years.
Security issues to be resolved. According to Zhu Yulong, deputy chief engineer of Shanghai Jiexin Power Engineering Department, the higher the nickel ratio, the worse the thermal stability of the cathode material. In the event of high temperature, external impact, etc., high-nickel batteries will have potential safety hazards. In addition, gas production during charging of high-nickel batteries will cause the battery to swell, which is also a problem to be solved. As a key component used in automotive products, high-nickel products still need a greater degree of improvement in terms of safety.
Equipment selection cycle is long. OEMs are very cautious about the application of new technologies and new products to vehicle models. Major automakers have strict and complex certification procedures for battery suppliers. Battery companies and products need to undergo difficult testing and verification, which takes a relatively long time. long.
