Recently, the "Interim Measures for the Management of The Recycling and Utilization of New Energy Vehicle Power Batteries" was released, which requires automobile manufacturers to bear the main responsibility for the recycling of power batteries. With a large number of power batteries entering the retirement period, although the recycling of power batteries has broad prospects for development, the risk is also not small.
Decommissioned power batteries will "have a home"
With the release of the "Interim Measures for the Management of Recycling and Utilization of New Energy Vehicle Power Batteries", the power batteries decommissioned by new energy vehicles in the future will be traceable and "homeable".
On February 26, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, the Ministry of Science and Technology, the Ministry of Environmental Protection, the Ministry of Communications, the Ministry of Commerce, the General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine, and the Energy Bureau issued the Notice of the Interim Measures for the Management of the Recycling and Utilization of New Energy Vehicle Power Batteries (hereinafter referred to as the "Measures"), emphasizing the implementation of the extended producer responsibility system and clarifying the main responsibility of automobile manufacturers to bear the main responsibility for power battery recycling. Encourage cascade utilization (transformation of vehicle power batteries with a capacity of less than 80%, utilization of energy storage and low-speed electric vehicles) and recycling (crushing, dismantling and smelting of power batteries that have been scrapped, etc., to achieve the recycling of nickel, cobalt, lithium and other resources), and promote the innovation of power battery recycling models. Encourage social capital to initiate the establishment of industrial funds, study and explore market-oriented models such as residual value trading of power batteries, and promote the recycling of power batteries. The Measures came into effect on 1 August 2018.
After the policy is implemented, the power battery decommissioned by new energy vehicles will be traced. The "Measures" proposes that battery manufacturers should coordinate with automobile manufacturers to code the power batteries produced in accordance with the requirements of national standards, and automobile manufacturers should record the corresponding information of new energy vehicles and their power batteries. Battery manufacturers and automobile manufacturers should upload the power battery code and new energy vehicle related information through the traceability information system in a timely manner. After the establishment of the traceability information system, the relevant departments will focus on monitoring the whole process of power battery manufacturing, circulation and recycling to avoid scrapping and recycling and dismantling through informal channels.
The power battery decommissioned by new energy vehicles can be traced, with the purpose of making it "homeable", so as to be effectively used and environmentally friendly disposal. The "Measures" for the first time clarified the responsibilities of automobile enterprises, battery enterprises and comprehensive utilization enterprises in the recycling link, pointing out that automobile production enterprises bear the main responsibility for power battery recycling, and relevant enterprises perform corresponding responsibilities in all aspects of power battery recycling to ensure the effective utilization and environmental protection disposal of power batteries. Encourage automobile manufacturers, battery manufacturers, scrap car recycling and dismantling enterprises and comprehensive utilization enterprises to cooperate in various forms to build and share waste power battery recycling channels.
Overall, the promulgation of the Measures is of great significance. On the one hand, with the implementation of the extended producer responsibility system, the power battery traceability and monitoring system is running, and the possibility of decommissioned power batteries flowing into illegal channels will be significantly reduced. On the other hand, the establishment of a traceability system for the recycling industry chain such as automobile manufacturers, battery manufacturers, scrap car recycling and dismantling enterprises and comprehensive utilization enterprises will accelerate the integrated development of the upstream and downstream of the power battery industry chain.
The 10 billion-level decommissioned battery market has yet to be tapped
Starting from 2018, the first batch of domestic automotive power batteries to enter the market are about to usher in a "scrap tide". Professional institutions predict that the total market size will exceed 10 billion yuan in 2020 and reach 38 billion yuan by 2025, and the recycling of new energy vehicle decommissioned power batteries will become an important emerging field.
Since 2014, with the rapid development of China's new energy automobile industry, the recycling of power batteries has gradually been put on the agenda. Generally speaking, the power battery of new energy passenger cars will be decommissioned after 5 to 6 years, and the power battery of commercial vehicles will be decommissioned even in 2 to 3 years. Therefore, starting from 2018, China will have a large number of power batteries entering the scrap period.
The Minmetals Economic Research Institute, a professional research institute, released a report that in 2020, China will have about 20gwh of power batteries decommissioned, and in 2025, there will be about 93gwh of power batteries decommissioned. The resulting battery recycling scale will reach about 10.7 billion yuan in 2020. By 2025, the market size will reach 37.9 billion yuan. It can be seen that the recycling of power batteries will quickly form a huge emerging market.
Only from the potential application of ladder batteries, decommissioned power batteries have great application potential in energy storage, low-speed electric vehicles and other fields. In terms of battery energy storage, take China Tower Company (a communication facility company jointly established by Mobile, Unicom and Telecom) as an example, the company has more than 1.8 million communication base stations, and the current annual replacement of batteries and the new base station need 25gwh of batteries, which is equivalent to 3 times the total number of actual ladderable batteries in the country in 2020. In the field of low-speed electric vehicles, China's low-speed electric vehicles sold more than 1 million vehicles in 2016 and are expected to reach 2 million in 2020, requiring a total of 10 to 14gwh of batteries. At present, low-speed electric vehicles mainly use lead-acid batteries, which are expected to be replaced by lower-cost decommissioned ternary lithium batteries in the future. In addition, in the fields of new energy power generation, peak shaving and amplitude modulation of transmission and distribution networks, peak shaving and valley filling on the user side, smart grids, and household distributed photovoltaic power generation, decommissioned power batteries have great application potential. It can be seen that the ladder battery not only does not lack market space at all, but also is expected to drive the formation of energy storage, a huge emerging market field.
Benefits and risks coexist
Although the recycling prospects of decommissioned power batteries for new energy vehicles are broad, and the current situation is an ideal time to lay out the recycling of power batteries, investment in the project should do a good job of income and risk assessment.
Some institutions predict that the layout of power battery recycling projects is an ideal time before the end of 2018. On the one hand, it is still on the eve of large-scale decommissioning of power batteries, most of the enterprises in the industry are in the early layout stage, the recycling of power batteries has not formed a scale, many enterprises have not yet achieved profitability, and leading enterprises and enterprise alliances have not really taken shape. On the other hand, the current policy access threshold is relatively low, and the state only requires enterprises to meet the relevant requirements of the "New Energy Vehicle Waste Power Battery Comprehensive Utilization Industry Specification Conditions" and declare the specification directory, in line with the necessary safety and environmental protection standards. However, it is reported that the relevant departments of the state are studying the implementation of the license management system, and the number of enterprises engaged in the future will be moderately controlled. Therefore, the relevant layout is conducive to occupying the market initiative in advance.
Although there is huge room for growth in power battery recycling, there are also greater risks. First of all, at present, the number of decommissioned power batteries flowing into formal channels cannot be guaranteed. Although the national environmental protection supervision has been greatly improved and the policies and regulations have clear provisions, the early construction of the recycling network system requires greater investment, and the construction is more difficult, and there is uncertainty about whether it can be quickly improved. This may lead to a low proportion of waste power batteries flowing into formal channels. Secondly, there is uncertainty in the process of standardized development of the industry. If the power battery traceability and monitoring system construction is not in place, a large number of codeless power batteries will still flow to informal channels, coupled with the lack of strict environmental protection supervision and law enforcement in some areas, battery recycling enterprises that do not meet environmental protection standards will still occupy cost advantages, resulting in lack of competitiveness of formal recycling enterprises. Third, the main scrap in the early stage is lithium iron phosphate batteries, and the benefits of battery dismantling and recycling are not optimistic. From the perspective of the type of decommissioned power batteries, domestic lithium iron phosphate batteries are used earlier and are widely used in commercial vehicles, so the scrap time is relatively more advanced. Although lithium iron phosphate batteries have comparative advantages in cascade utilization, the recycling value is very low, and it is difficult to achieve profitability at this stage.
From the perspective of industry development trends, the number of new energy vehicle markets in China is increasing day by day, and the amount of power batteries used as the core of new energy vehicles is also rising. After the implementation of the "Measures", the echelon utilization and battery production of decommissioned power batteries in the future, recycling and resource materials will be integrated and developed, and the alliance cooperation between the upstream and downstream of the entire industrial chain will be significantly strengthened. In the future, with the cooperation of enterprises in the industry to establish a formal recycling network, the market environment for power battery recycling will be improved day by day.