Overview of market development of lithium battery equipment industry

1. Definition and classification of lithium battery equipment

Lithium battery production equipment refers to the sum of production machinery and equipment required by all links of the lithium ion battery industry chain, referred to as lithium battery equipment. Because of the complexity of the process, the particularity and diversity of materials, the sensitivity of process parameters and the high standard of the production process of lithium battery, intelligent manufacturing equipment is the necessary equipment in the production process of lithium battery.

According to the range of functions covered, lithium battery production equipment includes special aircraft and whole line. Among them, special aircraft includes single equipment and integrated equipment, refers to the realization of single or multiple functions, but has not realized a production link of the whole line production, such as laminating machine, sealing machine, welding packaging machine, etc.; The whole line is basically realized a process of fully automated production, such as cell assembly line, battery assembly line.

According to the production process of lithium battery, the production process of lithium battery is divided into cell manufacturing, cell assembly, cell detection and battery assembly. The core manufacturing belongs to the first stage of the process, including the production of battery anode and cathode pieces; The middle part process is cell assembly, including cell winding/laminating, pole lug welding, shell encapsulation and cell liquid injection. The core detection and assembly process includes the process of chemical composition, detection, grouping and PACK. The main equipment required is as follows:

Lithium battery production link required equipment

2. Development history of lithium battery equipment

The development of lithium battery production equipment in China began in 1998. At that time, there were very few professional manufacturers of lithium battery equipment in China, and lithium battery equipment was heavily dependent on imports. In 2003, the domestic lithium electric equipment entered the mass production stage, automatic clamping formation and detection system, double-sided gap coater, integral winding machine and so on have been launched. In 2006, lithium production equipment manufacturing enterprises began to form a scale, but the overall technical level is weak, the degree of automation is low, lithium production enterprises production mode is semi-manual and semi-mechanization.

From 2013 to 2017, 3C electronics have higher requirements for high energy density and safety of batteries, and new energy vehicles have higher requirements for consistency, stability and safety of batteries. Traditional semi-automated production mode is difficult to meet these high-quality demands, forcing lithium battery manufacturers to adopt large-scale and high degree of automated production mode. At the same time, due to the positive long-term prospects of lithium batteries, a number of enterprises outside the industry accelerated to enter the new market of lithium electricity, driving the rapid expansion of the entire lithium electricity manufacturing equipment market scale. At this stage, the scale expansion speed is relatively large.

Since 2018, the market integration of the lithium industry has accelerated, and a group of relatively weak enterprises in the industry have stagnated production capacity or even withdrawn from the market. The leading enterprises in the industry still continue to expand, and their market shares are further concentrated in high-quality leading enterprises. Therefore, the growth rate of lithium equipment market scale has fallen, but it still maintains stable growth, and the market is increasingly rational. Since 2020, with the rapid volume of new energy vehicles, the demand for related equipment in the field of power batteries has grown rapidly, and the domestic market size of lithium electric equipment has experienced rapid growth.

Development history of lithium battery equipment

3. Market status of lithium battery equipment industry

In recent years, the global consensus of "carbon neutrality" and "carbon peak" is being formed at an accelerated pace. Major automobile producers and consumers are focusing on the development of new energy automobile industry. The prosperity of the new energy vehicle market has greatly stimulated the related demand of the lithium electric industry. In order to improve the market share, enterprises continue to develop new products and improve the process quality, thus promoting the domestic lithium electric equipment industry into a golden development period.

In terms of energy storage lithium batteries, under the background of accelerated transformation of energy structure, the installed capacity of new energy and the permeability of power generation continue to increase, but the renewable energy power generation has obvious volatility, which leads to a substantial increase in the demand for energy storage. With the decreasing cost and improving performance of lithium battery, electrochemical energy storage is becoming an important way of new energy storage.

Digital lithium battery, the industry started earlier, has formed a relatively complete industrial development cycle. In recent years, with the rise of emerging 3C digital electronic products such as smart home, smart wearable devices, drones and wireless Bluetooth headsets, 3C lithium batteries are developing in the direction of light, thin, short and small, which puts forward higher requirements for lithium battery devices.

The rapid development of the above lithium battery application field greatly stimulates the investment demand for lithium battery equipment. In 2022, the market scale of lithium battery equipment in China is about 86.09 billion yuan, with a year-on-year growth of more than 30%. Among them, power lithium battery is the main application field, the demand accounts for about 70% of the total scale.

Market size trend of China's lithium battery equipment from 2015 to 2022

The content of this article is excerpted from the 2023-2029 China Lithium Battery Equipment Industry Market Development Research and Investment Prospects Analysis Report released by Zhiyan Consulting.

4. Analysis of the industrial chain of lithium battery equipment industry

The upstream of the lithium battery equipment industry chain is mainly steel, aluminum, mechanical parts and electrical components suppliers, and the downstream is mainly digital lithium batteries, power lithium batteries, energy storage lithium batteries and other fields.

Lithium battery equipment industry chain diagram

The upstream industry of lithium battery equipment has a high degree of marketization, with numerous domestic and foreign manufacturers, full competition and sufficient supply of various raw materials, which has no significant impact on the lithium battery equipment industry.

The lithium equipment manufacturing industry is closely related to the boom degree of the downstream lithium ion battery industry, and the equipment investment of the downstream industry has a great impact on the demand for lithium equipment. Lithium-ion battery manufacturers generally do not move into specialized equipment manufacturing because of the large differences in expertise and high technical barriers involved in the lithium-ion equipment and battery industries. Equipment manufacturers need to form a close strategic cooperative relationship with battery manufacturers, and constantly improve the design and technology level according to the actual needs of battery manufacturers, which is conducive to the close combination of lithium-ion battery technology and equipment technology.