TrendForce: Global Power Battery Recycling Market to Exceed 1 Trillion Watt-hours in 2030

TrendForce predicts that the rapid growth of global new energy vehicle (NEV) market penetration has stimulated the year-on-year growth of power battery installed capacity. At the same time, the technical path of lithium iron phosphate batteries in the field of electrochemical energy storage has become the mainstream solution for new installed capacity in recent years, and its market share is rising rapidly. With the large-scale retirement of electric vehicles and energy storage batteries in the future, TrendForce estimates that by 2030, the global electric vehicle and energy storage battery recycling market will exceed 1 trillion watt-hours (TWh), of which lithium iron phosphate battery recycling will account for more than 58%.

There are many competitors, but the actual scale of retired power battery recycling is limited

At this stage, the battery recycling industry still has several major issues to be resolved. First, the development of the lithium-ion battery recycling industry is still in its early stages. About 70% of waste batteries come from defective products and waste materials from battery factories, and the actual scale of recycling is still small. Second, the number of participants in the battery recycling industry continues to rise, and the standardization of the entire industry still needs to be improved.

Taking the Chinese market as an example, China has been promoting a power battery recycling policy since 2020. In 2021 alone, more than 10,000 new battery recycling companies were registered, which is about 4 times more than in 2020. It is worth noting that at present, the annual production capacity of comprehensive treatment of waste batteries from white-listed companies has exceeded 1.01 million tons, and the planned processing capacity of these companies exceeds 4.25 million tons. However, the actual recycling volume of lithium-ion batteries in China in 2021 was less than 300,000 tons, indicating that the idle capacity of the battery recycling industry is obvious.

Cascade utilization and recycling go hand in hand to create a circular economy for the battery industry

From the perspective of China, one of the world's largest new energy vehicle markets, the installed capacity of the global power battery market will exceed 3TWh by 2030, and China's power battery installed capacity is expected to account for 45% of the world's total.

According to TrendForce's research, the current recycling of waste lithium-ion batteries in China is mainly divided into cascade utilization and recycling and reconstruction.