Power lithium battery recycling policy boosts the market for hundreds of billions of dollars

On April 7, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology announced the 'Ministry of Industry and Information Technology's 2021 Regulation-making Work Plan(Revision) and other 8 projects. Power lithium battery recycling has been proposed as a policy hot spot and focus of attention, highlighting the importance of end-of-line treatment of the new energy automobile industry chain. This will also give birth to hundreds of billions of power lithium battery recycling outlets. The data shows that the cumulative retired power lithium battery 23GWh in 2020 is expected to usher in a period of continuous explosive rise in the next 5-10 years. In terms of ternary batteries, recycling nickel, cobalt, manganese, lithium and other materials, or repairing regenerated battery materials, has a certain degree of economy, and the ternary battery recycling market will take the lead. At the current price, according to the estimation of the ternary battery recycling to 290,000 tons in 2030, the cumulative recycling space of the ternary battery will reach 130 billion yuan from 2020 to 2030. In terms of lithium iron phosphate batteries, there are two major utilization paths after recycling: cascade utilization and disassembly recycling. These two paths are not exclusive, but complementary. First cascade utilization and then dismantling and recycling will maximize the post-retirement value of lithium iron phosphate batteries. At present, the recycling and cascading utilization system is not yet complete, and the recycling of lithium elements also has economic problems. However, considering the support of policies, the rapid increase of passenger cars, the rise of the energy storage market and the constraints of lithium resources, The economy will gradually improve. According to the estimated residual value in the cascade utilization, the cumulative market space for the cascade utilization of iron-lithium-ion batteries will reach 68 billion yuan from 2020 to 2030. The current price of lithium recycling is estimated that the cumulative recycling market space for lithium iron phosphate lithium-ion batteries will reach 16.3 billion yuan from 2020 to 2030. It is worth noting that although the top-level design is gradually being improved, the recycling of power lithium batteries is currently constrained by the following three issues, making policy development more difficult: 1. The measurement standard of battery residual value is difficult to estimate. At present, the SOH (State-of-health) of power lithium batteries has many meanings, including the meaning of capacity attenuation, the meaning of remaining cycles, and the meaning of internal resistance. Therefore, it is difficult for policy makers to determine the standard measurement standard for the residual value of power lithium batteries. 2. Fluctuations in metal prices affect the economics of material recycling. The fluctuation of metal prices will ultimately determine the profit and loss of the power lithium battery recycling market. Metal prices are affected by the comprehensive factors of resource supply, technological progress, and downstream markets. There are technical cycles and production cycles, so metal prices are for power lithium battery recycling. The decisive factor driven by the market not only affects the business model of power lithium batteries, but also affects the effectiveness of policy formulation and implementation. 3. Technical standards for echelon utilization. Regarding lithium iron phosphate batteries, an important recycling method is cascade utilization. Factors such as cascade utilization method and safety are bothering the standard setting. Excessive standards will cause shrinkage of the cascade utilization market, and too low standards are not conducive to the long-term development of the cascade utilization market. .