Lead acid battery "upgraded version", safety in the middle

Lead carbon battery is a type of capacitive lead-acid battery, which is a unique design that combines lead-acid batteries with graphite electrodes.

It adds activated carbon to the negative electrode of traditional lead-acid batteries, which combines the advantages of supercapacitors and lead-acid batteries. It can be simply understood as an upgraded version of lead-acid batteries.

Compared to the mainstream lithium-ion batteries in the new energy storage field, safety is the biggest selling point of lead-carbon batteries.

① Due to its own structure and reaction mechanism, lead-carbon batteries mainly use dilute sulfuric acid aqueous solution as the electrolyte, which will not cause thermal runaway or spontaneous combustion explosion.

② Cost is also a major advantage of lead-carbon batteries, as lead and carbon resources are abundant in nature and raw material costs are relatively low.

③ The full life cycle environmental load of lead carbon energy storage is low, and the positive and negative electrode materials and electrolyte of the battery can be recycled. The recycling process is simple and the technology is mature, with a recovery rate of up to 99%.

Currently, multiple technological routes coexist, and the safety rope is not loose

The national "Implementation Plan for the Development of New Energy Storage during the 14th Five Year Plan" specifies the development of key core technologies, including lead carbon batteries, sodium ion batteries, new lithium-ion batteries, liquid flow batteries, compressed air, hydrogen (ammonia) energy storage, thermal (cold) energy storage, etc.

Recently, the "Work Plan for Stable Growth of Light Industry (2023-2024)" was issued, which requires the vigorous development of high safety lithium batteries, lead carbon batteries, sodium batteries and other products, and the expansion of applications in new energy vehicles, energy storage, communication and other fields.

The development of the energy storage industry should not only pursue higher performance, but also not forget the quality and safety of the products themselves.

The balanced development of performance, quality, and safety is the foundation that the emerging energy storage industry and related market entities should pursue.

Although its single life is not as long as that of lithium iron phosphate batteries, it has the lowest comprehensive cost, the safest and most reliable, and is also the most environmentally friendly throughout its entire life cycle.

Tesla has already used lead-carbon batteries in its electric vehicles and plans to further promote them in future models.

Ningde Times New Energy Technology Co., Ltd. is also increasing its research and development efforts in lead-carbon batteries to meet market demand.

From the perspective of the industrial chain, lead-carbon batteries are mostly veteran players in the field of lead-acid batteries, such as Tianneng Group, Ultramicro Group, Shengyang Group, Nandu Power Supply, and Shuangdeng Group, with similar technical routes adopted.

Positioning densely populated urban areas to complement mainstream approaches

Against the backdrop of gradually increasing peak valley electricity prices, lead-carbon batteries, with their safety advantages, are expected to open up the industrial and commercial energy storage market in densely populated areas or around industrial parks.

In the field of energy storage, lead-carbon batteries are more suitable for large-scale and long-term energy storage, as well as application scenarios with dual requirements for energy storage and emergency backup.

Due to the requirements of safety regulations, lead-carbon battery energy storage plays an irreplaceable role in underground spaces, densely populated areas, hazardous locations, and data centers with extremely high safety requirements.

Lead carbon battery energy storage is an ideal solution for long-term and large-scale storage, which can become a powerful supplement to pumped storage and solve the problem of long construction cycles of pumped storage.

Overall, lead-carbon batteries and lithium-ion batteries complement each other in the field of energy storage.

In the future, shared power stations constructed using lead carbon batteries will focus on user side energy storage.

Mainly used for peak and valley regulation, equivalent to a large urban power bank, it can also be used on the grid side and power generation side.

Since last year, the construction of lead carbon energy storage projects has accelerated

In May 2022, the construction of an annual production line of 20 gigawatts of lead-carbon batteries invested by Jidian Energy Valley, a subsidiary of State Power Investment Corporation, began in Baicheng, Jilin.

In September of the same year, Kungong Technology announced that it would invest in the construction of a lead carbon battery project with an annual output of 10 gigawatts in Qujing, Yunnan.

In March of this year, the EPC general contracting of the first phase of the National Power Investment Coal Mountain User Side Shared Energy Storage Project was publicly tendered, with a construction scale of 5.04MW/48.66MWh, and the lead carbon battery technology route was also chosen.

In April this year, Chayouzhong Banner in Inner Mongolia, with an investment of 10 billion yuan, signed a contract with the Taihu Lake Lake Energy Valley for a lead carbon energy storage power plant project, with an installed capacity of up to 10GWh.

In June, the Jiyang Green Storage 200MW/400MWh Shared Energy Storage Power Station Project and the Zhongwei City Saishang Jiangnan 200MW/400MWh Shared Energy Storage Demonstration Project released a list of winning candidates, both of which adopted the lead carbon battery technology route.

Recently, the user side energy storage power station of Jiangsu Changqiang Steel Company, with a total investment of 224 million yuan and an area of 11 acres, was successfully connected to the grid and put into operation.

Large capacity and long-term performance are two major characteristics of lead-carbon energy storage projects that have been put into operation. At present, lead-carbon energy storage power plants with a single installed capacity exceeding 100MW are common, and there are even projects with an installed capacity exceeding 1GW.

End:

In the future, the new energy storage field will have a diverse landscape, with a focus on meeting long-term energy storage needs, emphasizing power response capabilities, and focusing on special scenarios such as safety.

Lithium batteries, compressed air batteries, liquid flow batteries, and lead carbon batteries are in the first tier of commercial applications.

But ultimately, who can obtain the maximum market share depends on the continuous evolution ability in energy density, safety, temperature adaptability, economy, cycle times, and other aspects.