Established an energy ecological company, and GUANGZHOU AUTOMOBILE GROUP entered the field of power exchange and energy storage

GAC Group has been making frequent moves recently, just announcing last week that GAC Aean has made important progress in mixed reform, and this week announcing the establishment of an energy ecological company.

On March 22, the 11th meeting of the sixth board of directors of GAC Group deliberated and passed the "Proposal on the Establishment of GAC Energy Ecological Technology Co., Ltd.", and GAC Group and Aian will jointly invest in the establishment of GAC Energy Ecological Technology Co., Ltd. (tentative name), with a total investment of 4.96 billion yuan. The new company will focus on the national "double carbon" strategic goal, build a recharge and storage energy supply ecology and battery recycling ecology, build a smart and efficient energy cloud platform, and promote the research of energy storage system technology, "vehicle-station-network" collaborative interaction of smart charging and swapping service technology and product development and application.

GAC Group said that the investment in the establishment of an energy ecological company will help solve the pain points hindering the further development of new energy vehicles, promote the steady landing of GAC Group's energy actions, help the rapid development of the Group's new energy vehicle business, and also take a solid step for GAC Group to achieve carbon neutrality in the whole life cycle of products by 2050.

Accelerate the layout of charging and replacing services

In fact, as early as the 2021 Guangzhou Auto Show, GAC Group issued the "2 Energy Action", promoting the battery can be bought and rented, rechargeable and exchangeable, slow charging and fast charging, capacity can be large or small, mileage can be long or short, electricity can be bought, electricity can be sold, and recyclable and cascaded utilization. The establishment of GAC Energy Ecological Technology Company means the further landing of GAC Group's "2 Energy Action", and also means that GAC Aean will launch corresponding power replacement models in the future. According to the plan, the power-replaced versions of all models developed based on the new GEP3.0 platform will be put on the market from 2023 onwards.

In addition to the layout in the field of power exchange, GAC Group has also achieved phased success in batteries and charging piles. In 2021, GAC Aean launched three original battery technologies: magazine batteries, super-double-speed batteries, and sponge silicon anode batteries. In terms of charging equipment, GAC Aeon has launched equipment such as A480 super charging piles, and in 2021, it will start to promote the construction of self-developed power battery trial production lines. At present, Aian has built the world's first 480kw high-power intelligent supercharging station in Guangzhou, and it is expected that in 2025, E-An will build 2,000 supercharging stations in 300 cities across the country to achieve more comprehensive coverage.

Feng Xingya, general manager of GAC Group, said that in the face of the three major industry pain points of new energy endurance, safety and charging, GAC Group solved the mileage pain point in the first phase (before 2019), and the maximum cruising range has reached 1000 kilometers by equipping it with sponge silicon anode chip battery technology; in the second phase (2019 to 2021), it will solve the battery safety problem through the unique magazine battery system safety technology; the third phase will promote the "2 energy action" with ultra-fast charging technology and power exchange technology as the support.

At the moment when new energy has become the mainstream, the layout of charging and energy storage business by automobile manufacturers has become the consensus of the industry, and it is also a new battlefield for manufacturers to seize. In addition to GAC Group, WEILAI, BAIC, CATL and other enterprises have launched corresponding power exchange products and solutions. Among them, in order to achieve shared power exchange, CATL also launched the "chocolate power exchange block" in January this year, which is suitable for passenger cars and logistics vehicles from A00 class to B class and C class, and adapts to 80% of the pure electric platform developed models that have been listed in the world and will be listed in the next three years.

It can be seen that under the impetus of consumer demand and national policies, the power exchange model will also usher in a new round of outlet. Soochow Securities Research said that 2022 is the first year of the power station discharge, and the replacement equipment manufacturers will benefit the most. It is estimated that in 2025, more than 16,000 new substations will be added, and the investment in new equipment will exceed 60 billion yuan.

Promote battery recycling

In addition to accelerating the layout of charging and replacing, GAC Group also mentioned "battery recycling" in the announcement. Although GAC has not explained this concept, it can be seen from the literal meaning that it may be related to the recycling and processing of power batteries.

In the current automotive market in the mainland, there is still a lot of market space for the recycling of power batteries. The power batteries eliminated by new energy vehicles are large in size, and if they cannot be properly disposed of, they may bring large areas of pollution. According to the data, it is expected that by 2025, nearly 800,000 tons of power batteries will be decommissioned on the mainland, and if these power batteries are not harmlessly treated and recycled, it will cause great damage to the mainland's environment.

In order to solve the problem of new energy power battery recycling, many national departments are also intensively introducing relevant policies to boost the development of the industry. In 2012, the State Council formulated the "Energy Conservation and New Energy Vehicle Industry Development Plan", proposing to formulate management measures for the recycling and utilization of power batteries; in 2018, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology issued the "Interim Measures for the Management of The Recycling and Utilization of New Energy Vehicle Power Batteries", which clearly required automobile manufacturers to assume the main responsibility for power battery recycling; at the end of 2019, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology formulated the "Guidelines for the Construction and Operation of New Energy Vehicle Power Battery Recycling Service Outlets". In October 2021, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology said that it will accelerate the promotion of power battery recycling legislation, improve regulatory measures, etc., and accelerate the recycling of new energy vehicle power batteries from the aspects of regulations, policies, technologies, standards, and industries.

In addition, at this year's two sessions, many representatives and members also mentioned the issue of power battery recycling and made suggestions. Among them, Wang Qi, deputy to the National People's Congress and chairman of Qiyang Automobile, suggested that we should actively promote the implementation of the extended producer responsibility system and formulate management measures for the recycling and utilization of new energy vehicle power batteries; improve the traceability mechanism of power batteries, strengthen the standardized management of outlets, and give power battery identification codes; establish qualification identification standards for power battery recycling enterprises; improve technological innovation and development capabilities, and realize the echelon utilization of power batteries; encourage market-oriented innovative development, strengthen supervision, and improve the market credit system.

Driven by the policy, the new energy power battery recycling market has rapidly poured into a large number of powerful manufacturers. In addition to GAC Group, there are also Guoxuan Hi-Tech, EWELL Lithium Energy, Grimme, BYD, Tianci Materials, Ningde Times, etc. According to enterprise investigation data, there are 38,500 existing power battery recycling enterprises in the mainland, of which 3321 new power battery recycling related enterprises will be added in 2020, an increase of 142.94% year-on-year; 24,400 new enterprises will be added in 2021, an increase of 635.17% year-on-year.

As the number of entrants gradually increases, the competition in the field of power battery recycling will become more and more intense. Ouyang Mingzhi, deputy general manager of Grimme, said: "It is expected that the scrap of China's power batteries will exceed 1 million tons in 2025, and the power battery recycling industry will become the next outlet industry. ”

Responsible Editor: Li Yan'an Editor-in-Chief: Yu Jianping