On February 8th, 65438, Honeycomb Energy, a new technology company in the battery field, held their second battery day with the theme of "Bees create the future quickly". This battery day really gave me many surprises. At the press conference, Honeycomb Energy released the "600" strategy and four supporting strategies in 2025, and announced the company's global production capacity in 2025.
1, production capacity
The most important point of this battery day is the grand goal of production capacity. As mentioned above, Honeycomb Energy will increase its global production capacity to 600GWh in 2025. What concept? GWh is the unit of electric power, that is, 1 GWh = 1 10,000 kWh, that is, 1 10,000 kWh. So if you convert it, do you know what a huge order of magnitude this is? Therefore, to achieve this goal, we need a practical strategy as a support. In order to ensure the realization of the strategic goal of production capacity, Honeycomb Energy put forward four supporting strategies: category innovation, AI intelligent manufacturing, bee chain ecological partner and capital innovation, which supported the implementation of the "600" strategic goal from four dimensions: product, intelligent manufacturing, supply chain and capital.
But why is it 600 instead of 700 or 800? In fact, it is also calculated based on data. Some industry organizations predict that by 2025, the total demand for lithium batteries in global transportation electrification and energy storage in the power sector will exceed 1.8 TWh. 1TWh= 1000GWh。 The goal of Honeycomb Energy is to occupy 25% of the global market share. According to the capacity utilization rate of 75%, it is1800 gwh× 0.25/0.75 = 600GWh, so the global capacity goal of challenging 600 gwh appears.
2. Products
Product-grade short knife battery is a major focus of this battery day, and it is a brand-new battery category launched by Honeycomb Energy following the industry trend. Like BYD's well-known blade battery, the short blade is shorter in length and similar in shape. In the future, Honeycomb Energy will focus on the layout of electric global short blades, covering full-size short blade battery products from L300-L600, covering the global charging range from 1.6-4C, covering the global use scenarios from passenger cars to energy storage, commercial vehicles, construction machinery and non-high-speed trams, and covering cobalt-free and ternary. Here, L600 represents the blade length of 600mm, and 4C represents the charging rate. A simple understanding is that 1 hour is divided by the number before c, 4C stands for fully charged demand 1/4 hours, and 0.2C stands for fully charged demand 1/0.2=5 hours.
At the same time, Honeycomb Energy also provides systematic technology and product innovation for all kinds of short knife batteries, including bee speed 4C fast charging technology, future-oriented 800V battery system, efficient thermal management technology adapted to 800V high-voltage platform, cold bee thermal barrier technology and so on. To ensure the high safety, high performance and high manufacturing efficiency of the short knife battery.
Now the names of batteries are really varied, such as cobalt-free batteries, jelly batteries, blade batteries, 4680 batteries, CTP batteries, CTC batteries and so on. This makes ordinary consumers really confused. In fact, although these batteries have various names, as long as you understand the naming logic, you can guess the next time a manufacturer comes up with a new battery name. I simply divide the naming logic of these batteries into three categories:
The first one is named after the shape of the battery. As we know, the blade battery is named after its flat and slender shape, which looks like a blade. 4680 battery means a cylindrical battery, 46 means a bottom circle diameter of 46mm, and 80 means a cylindrical height of 80 mm Then, by analogy with 4680, you must know what 18650 and 2 1700 mean. The last 0 represents the type of cylinder, and the first four numbers describe the size of the cylinder.
The second type of blade battery is named according to the form of battery pack, such as CTP battery and CTC battery. We know that the structure of power battery is generally battery cell → module → battery pack. Battery cell is the smallest unit, and module is composed of battery cells. In order to improve the safety of the whole battery system, the battery pack is composed of modules, but whether the modules are needed or not is a dilemma at present. Removing the modules and integrating the batteries directly on the battery pack, that is, CTP(Cell to Pack), has the advantages of reducing the gaps between modules and increasing the volume energy density of the whole battery pack.
However, without modules, higher requirements are put forward for the safety and reliability of single cells. In the past, if the battery has problems, it can be controlled in local modules through BMS battery management system, so as not to affect the whole battery pack. However, after removing the module, if there is a problem with one battery, it may affect the whole battery. Therefore, lithium ferrous phosphate, a relatively safe battery, was generally used before.
Next, CTC (Cell to Chassis) is a more radical form. The battery unit is directly integrated into the chassis of the vehicle, and even the battery pack is removed. Tesla has taken the lead in this technology. They plan to integrate the 4680 battery directly into the body structure, which will greatly reduce the weight of the vehicle and greatly improve its performance and endurance.
Tesla has developed integrated die casting technology before, and the number of parts in the whole vehicle has been greatly reduced. This will be realized by CTC in the future, and Tesla will truly realize that less is more. Of course, at present, people like Volkswagen and Contemporary Ampere Technology Co., Ltd. also have technical explorations and attempts of CTC route. Whether it can really be loaded into mass production remains to be seen.
The third type is named after anode and cathode materials or electrolyte materials. When we talk about cobalt-free batteries, we mean that cobalt is no longer added to the cathode material. Friends who know about electric vehicles should know that there are two kinds of batteries, lithium ferrous phosphate and lithium ternary, which are cathode materials of electrodes.
Which is lithium ternary? The mainstream is nickel, cobalt and manganese of NCM and nickel, cobalt and aluminum of NCA. The current trend is to increase the proportion of nickel and reduce the content of cobalt. Why are you doing this? Because increasing the proportion of nickel is very helpful to improve the energy density of the battery, but too high nickel content also has disadvantages, which will reduce the stability and cycle life of the battery. The function of cobalt is to suppress the chaos caused by nickel ions and ensure the cycle life of the battery. Since the role of cobalt is so important, why should it be removed? The reason is that cobalt is expensive and scarce, so all parties are looking for a good way to replace cobalt. Honeycomb Energy has three black technologies in this respect:
The first is cation doping technology, which can increase the upper limit voltage of materials. They replaced cobalt with two mysterious elements with stronger chemical bonds, and established a firm connection between nickel and lithium ions, which significantly improved the stability and energy density of materials and reduced the cost.
Second, single crystal technology can improve the safety and service life of batteries. The battery needs high-strength rolling in the process of making pole pieces. After the traditional polycrystalline high nickel ternary material is rolled, the particles are obviously broken, which leads to serious safety problems caused by the reaction between anode and electrolyte, and the material structure will collapse. In contrast, single crystal is much more stable, and the battery life is 70% higher than that of polycrystalline high nickel ternary battery.
Third, nano-network coating can improve the cycling performance of materials under high pressure. In the process of synthesizing cobalt-free materials, scientists coated a layer of nano-oxide on the surface of single crystal lithium nickel manganate, which is equivalent to wearing a thin coat. Due to the barrier of this "coating", the reaction between anode and electrolyte is reduced. The cycle life is greatly improved.
Of course, back to the name, jelly battery is a new type of lithium battery with jelly-like electrolyte, which has the characteristics of high conductivity, self-healing and flame retardant. It can realize the electrical performance and safety performance of the battery, and prevent thermal diffusion while hardly reducing the electrical performance. In addition, it is worth mentioning that Honeycomb Energy's NCM short knife L600 battery based on jelly battery technology has successfully passed the acupuncture test, and it does not catch fire or smoke. The energy density reached 230Wh/kg. In fact, this jelly-like shape can be understood as an excessive form before the success of solid-state batteries, that is, semi-solid, which can be said to be a promising technical route at present.
The above are some small doorways in battery naming that I summarized, and of course there are many technical analyses. Although many chemical terms are not easy to understand, we can see that our own brand of battery technology companies are building a benchmark for the new era in the future through these cutting-edge black technologies and leading the whole industry to a higher level. This is worthy of our praise and encouragement.
As an energy carrier, we should not only look at its contribution or credit in the "service" stage, but also pay attention to a serious problem, that is, what will their fate be when they can't continue to provide sustained and stable power for vehicles?
According to the latest data of China Automotive Power Battery Industry Innovation Alliance, in 2020, the total decommissioning amount of power batteries in China will be about 200,000 tons, and this number will rise to 780,000 tons by 2025. The coming retirement period of power batteries and the constraint of lithium resources mean that the recycling of lithium batteries is imperative.
How to guide the policy?
On August 27th this year, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology issued the "Administrative Measures for Step Utilization of Power Batteries for New Energy Vehicles" jointly issued by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, the Ministry of Science and Technology, the Ministry of Ecology and Environment, the Ministry of Commerce and the General Administration of Market Supervision. The "Measures" propose to encourage echelon utilization enterprises to cooperate with enterprises such as new energy vehicle production, power battery production, recycling and dismantling of scrapped motor vehicles, strengthen information sharing, and use existing recycling channels to efficiently recycle used power batteries for echelon utilization. Encourage power battery manufacturers to participate in the recycling and cascade utilization of waste power batteries.
Is echelon utilization the optimal solution?
Here we see a word called echelon utilization rate, so what is echelon utilization rate? It's actually quite understandable. A simple example in life, the battery on the remote control car is dead, and it can be used for a long time when it is removed and put in the air conditioner remote control, which not only maximizes the utility of the battery, but also prolongs the whole life cycle of the battery. Generally speaking, after the power battery decays to 80%, it cannot meet the demand of providing power for new energy vehicles and has to be eliminated. If the battery is directly scrapped and recycled when it still has 80% power and thousands of cycle life, there will be a great waste of resources. How to give full play to the value of retired power batteries will become the focus of attention. This behavior is also regarded as an effective measure to reduce costs and increase efficiency by enterprises, and even becomes a new business for some enterprises to increase their income. The research results show that the utilization rate of retired lithium-ion power batteries of electric vehicles reaches 60%, and the cascade utilization value is huge.
After several years of research and exploration, the application fields of cascade utilization of power batteries in China have been concentrated in power system energy storage, standby power supply for communication base stations, low-speed electric vehicles, small distributed household energy storage, wind and light complementary street lamps, mobile charging vehicles, electric forklifts and other related fields.
Generally, large-scale energy storage systems have a great demand for batteries, but because batteries often come from different vehicles, if the true state and cycle life of these batteries cannot be known from different channels, it will not only affect the energy storage effect, but even have potential safety hazards. At present, it is considered that the most feasible way is to disassemble the power battery pack into individual units, and then test and confirm the performance before using it as energy storage.
The utilization and recovery steps of scrapped power batteries include the following steps:
(1) battery recycling;
(2) disassembling the battery pack to obtain a battery monomer;
(3) screening out available battery cells; .
(4) pairing the battery monomers to form a battery pack;
(5) System integration and operation maintenance
In this process, the process of disassembly, inspection and assembly is not only time-consuming and labor-intensive, but also costly if only manpower is used. At the same time, at present, the power battery structures of various enterprises are different. Batteries with different structures, such as ternary batteries, lithium iron phosphate batteries and even lithium manganate power batteries, have different performances and service lives. These are all obstacles that need to be overcome when using step by step.
Therefore, although the national level encourages the cascade utilization of scrapped batteries, there is a more rude way, that is, direct disassembly. For those who support direct disassembly, people think that the current technology of cascade utilization is not mature, the safety problems in the process of cascade utilization can not be guaranteed, and the input cost is too high, which is contrary to the original intention. Moreover, with the rising price of nickel and cobalt in the upstream raw materials, the scale benefit of direct dismantling and recycling resources is far greater than the cascade utilization.
So is it cascade utilization or direct disassembly? At this time, it may be necessary to analyze specific problems. At present, the mainstream power batteries in the market are mainly divided into lithium iron phosphate batteries and ternary lithium batteries. The safety performance of ternary lithium battery is not guaranteed, so it is difficult to be used as energy storage. However, with the rising price of raw materials, it is profitable to disassemble ternary lithium batteries directly. On the contrary, for lithium iron phosphate batteries, direct dismantling has no large-scale benefits of resources, and it may be a better destination and choice to enter the cascade utilization.
Some experts predict that by 2030, the recycling of ternary and lithium iron phosphate batteries will become a 100 billion market. According to the current price, the cumulative recycling space of ternary batteries will reach 654.38+0305 billion yuan in 2020-2030; From 2020 to 2030, the cumulative market space for cascade utilization/recycling of lithium iron phosphate batteries will reach 6.8/163 billion yuan respectively.
What did the enterprise do?
At present, the domestic power battery recycling and cascade utilization industry is still in the "primary stage", and more new business models need to be explored, but some prescient enterprises have already laid out the power battery recycling industry:
In the field of battery disassembly and recycling, BYD adopts a three-step comprehensive strategy of fine disassembly, material recycling and activation and regeneration. Among them, raw materials such as anode material powder, cathode graphite, copper foil current collector, copper foil current collector, shell, cover plate and plastic fittings are obtained through fine disassembly. & lt/