Power battery recycling may become a new trend. What business opportunities can retired batteries bring?

The explosive growth of new energy vehicles and power batteries in recent years has not only driven the development of these two industries, but also led to the gradual rise of another multi-billion-dollar industry: the power battery recycling industry.

A large number of power batteries are about to enter retirement, the demand for recycling is urgent, and the market space is broad. It is expected that the growth rate of power battery recycling volume in 2018 will exceed 200%.

As a device for converting chemical energy into electrical energy, lithium batteries have relatively reversible chemical reactions going on inside them, and the side reaction between the negative electrode and the electrolyte is the main limiting factor of their cycle life. Usually, consumer batteries have a life cycle of 3-6 years, and depending on the function and replacement frequency of the appliance, their scrap cycle is about 5 years.

Power lithium batteries are used in new energy vehicles, and their lifespan is mainly determined by the frequency of charging. Operating vehicles such as online ride-hailing vehicles, taxis, and buses usually charge 7 times per week, while private cars usually charge once per week. Overall, the life cycle of power batteries is also about 5 years.

For new energy vehicles, the battery needs to be replaced when the battery capacity decays to 70%-80% of the initial capacity. The service life of electric passenger car batteries is 4-6 years, while commercial vehicle batteries are more expensive, so the life is about 3-5 years.

Since the vigorous promotion of new energy vehicles began after 2013, it can be inferred that the first batch of battery replacement pilot projects will be around 2018, when the retirement and renewal of power batteries is also expected to usher in explosive growth.

The market generally expects that 2018 will usher in the first peak of power battery scrapping. From 2018 to 2020, the cumulative volume of power batteries scrapped nationwide will reach 120,000-200,000 tons. A more radical view is that by 2020, the scrap volume will reach 280,000-300,000 tons.

Assuming that the battery life of new energy passenger vehicles is 5 years and that of commercial vehicles is 4 years, and the renewal rate after expiration (i.e. the number of batteries actually retired/total number of batteries that should be retired upon expiration) increases year by year, then based on the production of power batteries in recent years, it can be estimated that by 2018, the newly added scrapped installed capacity of power batteries may reach 11.14GWh, a significant increase of 278.9% year-on-year.

Driven by the high scrap volume, the market space for power battery recycling is very attractive. The scale of the waste power battery recycling market was 5 billion to 6.5 billion yuan in 2018, and it will reach 7 billion to 7.5 billion yuan in 2020. In 2025, this figure will climb again to around 25 billion yuan.

BYD, Guoxuan High-tech, AVIC Lithium Battery, CATL, Narada, and ZTE Paineng have all deployed energy storage businesses, and BMW has also begun to recycle used power batteries from its new energy vehicles.

Complete vehicle manufacturers, battery companies, raw material recycling companies and capital have all entered the field of power battery recycling in a big way, causing the popularity of this industry to soar.

Power battery recycling not only has market potential, but will also show a trend of rapid development in recent years. Although power battery recycling has not yet formed a large-scale, and the profit model is still in the exploratory stage, it is precisely because of the continuous acceleration of the development of the new energy industry that the future prospects are promising.

As a winner of Toutiao's Qingyun Plan and Baijiahao's Bai+ Plan, the 2019 Baidu Digital Author of the Year, the Baijiahao's Most Popular Author in the Technology Field, the 2019 Sogou Technology and Culture Author, and the 2021 Baijiahao Quarterly Influential Creator, he has won many awards, including the 2013 Sohu Best Industry Media Person, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Beijing Third Place, the 2015 Guangmang Experience Award, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Finals Third Place, and the 2018 Baidu Dynamic Annual Powerful Celebrity.