According to the data, in the first half of April 2024, 516,000 passenger cars were retailed in China. Among them, the retail sales of new energy passenger vehicles were 260,000, a year-on-year increase of 32%, and the penetration rate of new cars reached 50.39%, accounting for more than traditional fuel vehicles for the first time!
This is not only an important symbol of China's energy transition in the transportation sector, indicating that China's automobile industry continues to develop in a green and low-carbon direction, but also plays an exemplary role in accelerating the electrification of other transportation fields such as ships and aircraft, and has accumulated mature experience in the large-scale application of lithium batteries.
According to agency data, by the end of 2023, the number of electric ships in China has exceeded 700, of which more than 200 will be added in 2023, driving the shipment of lithium batteries for ships to reach 0.61GWh, an increase of 80% year-on-year, and at the same time, this also makes the shipbuilding industry one of the fastest growing industries in lithium battery application scenarios.
It should be mentioned that compared with the current passenger car with a maximum power of about 150kWh, the maximum power of a ship has exceeded 50MWh, and its "large" power charge is even more than the sum of 330 pure electric passenger cars equipped with a 150kWh large battery pack.
With the continuous improvement of environmental protection requirements in the shipping industry and the sharp decline in the price of superimposed lithium batteries since 2023, electric ships will be more and more favored by the market, and the speed of lithium battery electrification will be significantly accelerated. The agency expects that by 2035, the shipment scale of lithium batteries for marine use in mainland China will exceed 50GWh.
In this context, which battery companies have been supporting marine lithium batteries, what are the trends of marine lithium batteries, and these hot issues are worthy of attention and sorted out.
01
The maximum power of pure electric power ships exceeds 50MWh
Since the beginning of this year, the development of pure electric power ships in mainland China has been further accelerated, and the loading scale of power batteries of many battery companies has continued to increase.
On April 22, 2024, the Jianghai direct pure electric powered container ship "COSCO SHIPPING Green Water 01" safely berthed at the No. 1 berth of Shengdong Wharf in Yangshan Port.
According to reports, the 10,000-ton pure electric container ship has a total length of 119.8 meters, a width of 23.6 meters, a depth of 9 meters, and a design draft of 5.5 meters. The ship can save 3,900 kilograms of fuel and reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 12.4 tons per 100 nautical miles, and will travel between Nanjing and Yangshan Port once a week in the future, helping the transformation of river-sea intermodal transportation in the region to "zero emission and zero pollution".
In terms of batteries, the ship can flexibly configure the number of battery boxes according to the needs of the voyage, and can carry up to 36 battery boxes with a total capacity of more than 50MWh, with a total battery capacity of more than 50MWh, which can alleviate the problems of long charging time and short cruising range of electric ships in the past.
On March 21, the large electric passenger ship "Minjiang Meeting Room" made its maiden voyage at Taijiang Wharf in Fuzhou City, Fujian Province. The ship is equipped with CATL's 302Ah lithium iron phosphate battery, and adopts safety-grade battery system thermal runaway blocking technology, redundant power distribution architecture (two groups of batteries are controlled independently, if one group loses power, the other group of batteries can also operate safely), and all electrical equipment in the battery compartment are equipped with explosion-proof and other configurations, and the safety level of the electric cruise ship has been greatly improved.
On February 2, the 500-passenger "Pearl River Jade" successfully made its maiden voyage at Dashatou Wharf in Guangzhou, which is currently the largest pure electric power luxury cruise ship for the Pearl River night cruise in Guangzhou, equipped with EVE LF280K battery cell integrated battery system, with a cell cycle life of more than 8,000 times, supporting the life cycle of the marine battery system for more than 10 years.
Among the Pearl River night tourist boats, the "Pearl River Jade" is the sixth pure electric passenger ship equipped with EVE's lithium marine batteries. At the same time, with the LF280K battery cell, EVE can customize battery solutions with a variety of power and voltage according to customer needs, achieve zero carbon emissions of the whole ship, and meet the needs of green and low-carbon shipping.
In addition, more and more electric ships of different types are accelerating in inland rivers, lakes, reservoirs, ports and other places in the mainland, and the supporting batteries show the following trends:
First, similar to passenger cars, electric ships are also plagued by range anxiety and energy replenishment anxiety. In order to solve the pain points of the market, the number of ship types equipped with MWh battery systems is gradually increasing; The battery swap mode is more popular than the charging mode in the field of electric vessels.
Second, at present, lithium iron phosphate batteries are mainly used in the field of electric ships, which are safer; Large electric ship cells with a large capacity of more than 300Ah and a long cycle life have become a trend.
Third, the containerized battery system is used to improve the efficiency of battery swapping.
Fourth, on large electric ships, the redundant power distribution architecture will be conducive to the realization of power backup guarantee.
In terms of policy, in 2022, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology of the People's Republic of China, the National Development and Reform Commission and other five ministries and commissions jointly issued the "Implementation Opinions on Accelerating the Green and Intelligent Development of Inland River Vessels", which pointed out the direction for the green and low-carbon development of the shipping industry. On the other hand, the mainland lithium battery industry continues to lead the world, solving the core power battery supply problem for electric ships, and helping mainland to take a step forward in the field of electric ships.
02
The leading battery companies have increased the layout of lithium battery projects for ships
The rapid development of electric ships and ship battery swapping will drive the rapid growth of demand for lithium batteries, including EVE, CATL, Guoxuan Hi-Tech, Xinwangda, China Innovation Airlines, Zhengli New Energy and other leading battery companies in this field continue to increase their layout.
In 2016, EVE's marine power batteries were certified by China Classification Society, and its products have been certified by CCS, DNV, ABS, BV and other classification societies, and the application types cover scenic spots/city cruise ships, passenger ferries, bulk carriers, container ships, offshore aquaculture platforms, large ocean-going hybrid ships, etc.
As of December 2023, EVE's marine lithium battery shipment scale has exceeded 200MWh, with a cumulative global shipment of more than 1,000 ships, and more than 50% of electric ships in China are equipped with EVE's battery solutions.
On March 13, 2024, at the Asia-Pacific Maritime Exhibition held in Singapore, EVE brought LF125P, LF280K, LF304 and other marine scene products to the show, demonstrating its leading strength, and signed a cooperation agreement with ZPA (a world-class power, control and system solution integrator) to help the development of global green shipping.
In 2018, CATL signed a strategic cooperation agreement with CCS Wuhan Institute of Specifications to officially enter the electric ship market.
In November 2022, CATL established a wholly-owned subsidiary, CATL Electric Boat Technology Co., Ltd., focusing on the technology, product development and application of marine power battery systems. In December 2023, it brought a variety of marine battery systems and marine power system solutions to the China International Maritime Exhibition. It is reported that at present, more than 500 new energy ships around the world that have been put into use are equipped with CATL batteries.
In December 2019, Gotion Hi-Tech acquired 51% of the shares of the original Shanghai Wuyang Shipbuilding Technology Co., Ltd., and reorganized the latter into Shanghai Guoxuan Wuyang Shipbuilding Technology Co., Ltd., and began to lay out the field of electric ships.
After Shanghai Guoxuan Wuyang Marine Technology Co., Ltd. received the first batch of orders for 3 sets of marine power lithium battery systems in March 2020, its battery shipments began to gradually increase.
In April 2021, Sunwoda's subsidiary, Sunwoda Electric Vehicle Battery Co., Ltd., obtained the type approval certificate of China Classification Society, and the product is suitable for ships and offshore facilities.
In April 2024, based on the "LISA-321" development strategy, Zhengli New Energy has built a full-scenario, multi-path technical route and product matrix covering BEV, PHEV, REEV and HEV vehicles, energy storage, electric manned aerial vehicles, electric ships and other vehicles, and has carried out in-depth and comprehensive cooperation with global customers in various fields of land, sea and air.
In fact, emissions from fuel vessels are listed as one of the main sources of air pollution, and their carbon dioxide emissions remain high. Therefore, how to reduce the sulfur oxides, nitrogen oxides, and carbon dioxide emissions of ships will be a serious challenge for the mainland and even the global shipping industry. On the other hand, the mainland leads the world in pure electric marine battery technology and industrial chain support, and under the active layout of the mainland's leading battery companies, it will undoubtedly accelerate the green development process in the global shipping field.
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