Lithium battery diaphragm low-end serious overcapacity!

If we start with the successful commissioning of Xinxiang Grayne's first production line in 2004, after more than 10 years of evolution, China's lithium-ion diaphragm industry is ushering in rapid development, with rapid expansion of production capacity, and high-end wet diaphragm has become"new energyUnder the background of revolution, the diaphragm enterprises seek long-term development of the "must-fight place".

Withnew energyWith the continuous and rapid development of automobiles, the market demand for power batteries is expanding day by day. The latest public data show that,In 2016, China's automotive power battery production was 30.5GWh, an increase of 82% year-on-year. Under the linkage effect, the upstream diaphragm material is also produced and sold.China in 2016Lithium batteryDiaphragm output reached 0.929 billion square meters, up 33.03 percent year-on-year.

It is based on the rapid growth of power batteries and the high prosperity of the lithium-electric diaphragm industry that most domestic diaphragm manufacturers have begun to expand their production capacity with great fanfare. With the release of a new round of production capacity in 2017, the topic of "overcapacity" and "imbalance between supply and demand" is endless.

However, industry insiders believe that although there may be excess domestic diaphragm production capacity in 2017, in the medium and high-end market monopolized by foreign diaphragm enterprises, especially wet diaphragm, there is a large space for import substitution, and supply and demand are still tight. Domestic enterprises need to open up the high-end market with high-quality products.

Saturation or shortage?

From the beginning of 2015, the domestic has set off a lithium battery diaphragm investment boom, the year at least more than 20 dry line, 10 wet line investment construction.

In 2016, the construction of lithium battery diaphragm production line was in full swing, and the production capacity was further expanded rapidly.new materialIt was learned online that Xingyuan Material, Cangzhou Pearl, Nanyang Technology, Hefei Jieshi, Sinoma Technology, Newmeter Technology, etc. have all invested in new projects.

Starting from 2017, some of the above-mentioned production lines have already started or are planned to be put into production, and the production capacity will be gradually released.

It is understood that Cangzhou Mingzhu's diaphragm project with an annual output of 60 million square meters is currently in the stage of equipment commissioning and trial production, and is expected to be officially put into production in the second quarter of 2017. The first line of the 0.105 billion-square-meter wet process project previously invested through additional issuance is also expected to be put into trial production in March 2017.

In addition, Hunan Runyuannew materialThe first production line of lithium battery diaphragm with an annual output of 80 million square meters has been put into trial production with an investment of 0.37 billion yuan. The second production line is expected to be installed and put into trial production in March 2017. The diaphragm production lines of 0.16 billion square meters and 0.12 billion square meters in Hunan Zhongli and Suzhou Jieli are expected to be converted into effective production capacity in the first half of 2017.

Relevant statistics show that by the end of 2016 or early 2017, China's total diaphragm design capacity may exceed 2.5 billion square meters."

From the demand side, Xu Yanhua, deputy secretary general of the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers, had predicted that China would produce in 2017.new energyAbout 800000 cars.

Based on this, some research institutions have calculated that the driving force for 2017Lithium batteryshipments of about 43.86GWh, powerLithium batteryThe demand for diaphragms in the field will reach 0.88 billion square meters.

By contrast, the industry's fears of overcapacity seem inevitable. However, the contradiction is that ATL, Lishen, Guangyu, BAK and other domestic battery factories are still widely using imported diaphragms. Is the domestic lithium battery diaphragm a shortage or saturation?

"The process of diaphragm equipment debugging and customer certification is long, and the entire investment cycle will take as long as three to five years. Therefore, the capacity release of diaphragm companies will not be so fast, and there should be no overcapacity this year." An unnamed domestic diaphragm enterprise market manager in the acceptance.new materialIn an online interview, he said that in the high-end market, high-quality products are still tight supply and demand, and the import substitution space is relatively large, especially the wet diaphragm.

It is understood that in 2016, the actual effective production capacity of domestic first-line wet diaphragm enterprises was less than 0.25 billion square meters, compared with the annual demand of 0.46 billion square meters, there is a large gap.

As one of the four key materials of lithium,Lithium battery separator has a profound impact on battery performance, safety and cost. Because of its highest technical barriers, it has not yet completed localization. Asahi Kasei of Japan, Toray of Japan, Celgard of the United States and SKI of South Korea account for more than 50% of the global market share.

Star source material secretary Zhou Guoxing said in an interview a few days ago that more than 60% of the middle and high-end market of lithium-ion battery separators is still occupied by foreign separator manufacturers such as the United States and Japan, and the replacement space for the middle and high-end market of separators in the future is very huge.

Why has the wet diaphragm become the mainstream?

From 2015 onwards, most of the domestic diaphragm manufacturers to expand production capacity are mainly wet diaphragm.

According to data from Sairui Research, China's diaphragm shipments in 2015 were 0.628 billion square meters, an increase of 49.5 percent over the same period last year, of which wet diaphragm production reached 0.238 billion square meters, an increase of 90.5 percent over the same period last year. The growth rate of wet shipments is accelerating and will be further expanded in 2016.

Dry and wet processes are two mainstream preparation processes for lithium-ion diaphragms. Under the strong impact of the wet diaphragm, the future of the dry market will shrink significantly? Cangzhou Mingzhu in the acceptance of investment institutions when the external said, compared with the dry diaphragm, the wet diaphragm does exist certain advantages, is the mainstream direction.

In an interview with the media, Wang Zhichun, general manager of Newmi Technology, also compared the advantages and characteristics of the two from the perspective of professional diaphragm manufacturers.

In his view, at present, lithium iron phosphate batteries have mature technology and high safety. Therefore, under the same requirements, low-cost dry-process separators can reduce the manufacturing cost of battery products while ensuring the applicability of the products. For power batteries with high safety requirements, dry-process double-pull plus coating is also a good choice; while ternary batteries pursue the unity of high capacity and safety, requiring light and thin products, higher requirements are placed on the thickness of the diaphragm in the material system, so the wet diaphragm is more in line with the requirements of the ternary system.

At the end of 2016, the Ministry of finance, the Ministry of industry and information technology, the Ministry of science and technology and the development and Reform Commission jointly issued the notice on adjusting the financial subsidy policy for the promotion and application of new energy vehicles, taking the battery energy density as an important indicator of subsidy, and the ternary battery has become an important position for the strategic layout of lithium battery enterprises.

This can also be seen from the large-scale layout of ternary lithium batteries by BYD, the world's second largest and largest domestic power battery manufacturer. BYD is the technology leader of lithium iron phosphate batteries in the world. According to BYD's Dong Mi Li Qian, BYD will expand the layout of ternary lithium batteries in the future. BYD expects the battery capacity to be 10GWH in 2016 and 5-6GWH in 2017.

Cangzhou Mingzhu said in a survey by investment institutions that the current subsidy policy formulated by the state is to give corresponding subsidies according to the energy density of the battery. In this regard, ternary batteries have certain advantages. For lithium iron phosphate, it needs to pass technological transformation., Technology upgrades meet the relevant subsidy requirements, and large battery manufacturers have begun to prepare for this.

Industry insiders believe that driven by the explosive development of the new energy vehicle market and the demand for ternary materials, the demand for wet diaphragms has increased rapidly. At present, domestic manufacturers have expanded the production capacity of wet diaphragms. However, due to the high barriers in production technology, the long construction cycle of production lines and the uncertainty of production time and actual production capacity, the high-end wet diaphragm market will still be in short supply.