Recently, China Tower's 2023-2024 centralized bidding project for lithium iron phosphate battery products for backup power has announced the winning candidates. A total of 33 bidders participated in the bidding, and the bid evaluation committee reviewed all the bidding documents in accordance with the comprehensive evaluation method specified in the bidding documents. After review, the 1-11 places were:Zhongtian Technology, Shuangdeng Group, Nandu Power, Topband, Kunyu Power, Shengyang Power, Gretitanium, Xingheng Power, Woboyuan, Zhitai New Energy, Jiangxi Anchi。In addition, more than 10 companies including Xinwangda, Peneng Technology, EVE Lithium Energy, Tianhong Lithium Battery, Polyfluoride and Liwei Energy participated in the bidding, or were rejected because the sales performance of lithium iron phosphate battery packs did not meet the standard, or because they did not meet the relevant terms and conditions. It can be seen that in the past two years, in the bidding for communication backup energy storage projects, the bidding conditions of the owner have become more standardized and mature, and the bidding changes have become more reasonable.
Bids** fell sharply
According to the previous bidding announcement, this project collects 8 specifications of lithium iron phosphate battery packsThe estimated volume is 424gwhThe number of bidders in the project is 8, the shares are %. It is worth noting that this time there are 11 candidatesExcludes tax**Range:0.54-0.61 yuan wh, the average price is 057/wh。Significantly lower than 0The maximum bid limit of 78 yuan wh。The bid limit is based on the market raw materials in August**. In March this year, China Mobile announced the results of the first batch of centralized procurement of lithium iron phosphate battery products for communications from 2022 to 2024, and 10 including Shuangdeng, Zhongtian, Nandu, and Penghui won the bid. The procurement scale is about 558.6 billion ah. It is estimated that the procurement demand will be fulfilled within two years. The project adopts a quota tender, and the number of successful bidders is 8 to 10. In comparison, in March, the above-mentioned enterprises in the China Mobile bidding project included tax ** range: 105-1.1 yuan wh, the average price is 107 Yuan wh;Excl. tax**Range: 093-0.97 yuan wh, the average price is 095/wh。From the first point of view, the bidding unit price has fallen by nearly 5% since the first quarter of this year. The root cause also lies in the lithium carbonate raw material. In the fourth quarter, the decline in lithium carbonate** accelerated. Since November, lithium carbonate has fallen below the 100,000 yuan mark, and triggered a new round of selling. In the eyes of industry insiders, the tide of price reductions is still difficult to reverse for the time being, and the industry may still have a hard time in 2024, and about 100,000 ** may continue. The corresponding battery cell ** is also "sluggish". In late December, the average price of square energy storage cells (lithium iron phosphate) has fallen to 044 yuan wh, the lowest price is 04 yuan wh, down more than 50% from January**. Even the market has been exposed to 0$3 wh of loose orders. Not only in the field of communication energy storage, but also in various application scenarios such as large storage, household storage, and industrial and commercial energy storage, bidding has also continued to decline. The flock of capital and cross-border manufacturers from all walks of life has exacerbated the phenomenon of low-price bidding and low-price order grabbing under overcapacity. The fierce war in the industry has led to many project owners being very concerned about the cost, and the chain is oriented. Many people believe that the fierce involution of the industry will inevitably accelerate the exit of some enterprises. It is expected that a large number of companies will withdraw from the energy storage market next year, and the head of the market will be more obvious.
The market demand is "new".
According to the statistics of lithium batteries, the shipments of energy storage lithium-ion batteries for communication base stations in China will reach 10 in 20227GWh, up 17 percent year-on-year4%。As of 2022, the total number of 5G base stations in China has reached 23120,000, accounting for more than 60% of the world's total. Since the beginning of 2023, Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen, Ningxia, Dalian, Jilin and other provinces and cities have announced 5G base station construction goals, driving a new round of development of domestic communication energy storage. At the same time, new application scenarios of communication energy storage are unleashing new potential. Previously, the application scenarios of communication energy storage batteries were relatively simple, idle most of the time, and low profits. At present, communication energy storage is exploring a new business model and expanding its profit margin by connecting to virtual power stations. On February 7, 2023, Shenzhen issued the "Several Measures to Promote the High-quality Development of Green and Low-Carbon Industries in Shenzhen", which further encourages the deployment of power supply side and grid side energy storage systems in the demand for peak regulation and frequency regulation of the power grid, and the deployment of user-side energy storage in data centers, 5G base stations and other scenarios according to local conditions, which will accelerate the connection of Shenzhen's 5G base station energy storage system to the virtual power grid. On June 19, the energy storage system of the first batch of 4,692 5G base stations of Shenzhen Tower was connected to the Shenzhen Virtual Power Plant Management Center to participate in the regulation of power grid. From the perspective of energy storage battery technology route, lead-acid substitution has become a trend, lithium-ion batteries will occupy more than 80% of the market share, including sodium-ion batteries and fuel cells, and new battery technologies will also be gradually applied in communication base station energy storage. In particular, sodium batteries undoubtedly have greater competitiveness, and communication energy storage will be one of their main application scenarios in the future, and they are approaching the stage of large-scale mass production. On the one hand, communication energy storage has relatively low requirements for energy density, and on the other hand, communication energy storage is more sensitive to **. Currently, lead-acid batteries** are at 05 yuan Wh, while sodium electricity in the early stage of mass production ** is 0About 75 yuan Wh, with the realization of large-scale mass production in the future, the ideal sodium electric ** will reach 03 yuan or so. The cycle life is more than 1600-1800 cycles, which is more than twice as many as the 800 cycles of lead-acid batteries. In addition, sodium electricity has high safety and stability, can effectively cope with the challenges of outdoor harsh environments, and is very suitable as a backup battery for communication base stations with high requirements for reliability and safety, and is used to ensure the normal operation of communication base stations. At the same time, the sodium-ion battery has excellent over-discharge performance, and can also cope with the frequent power outages of communication base stationsHaisida, Xiongtao shares, Penghui energy, Nandu power supplyand other communication energy storage head enterprises to deploy sodium electricity. On February 13 this year, Xiongtao Co., Ltd. signed the "Investment Framework Agreement" with the people of Jingshan City, planning to invest a total of about 10.5 billion yuan to build a lithium battery and sodium battery industrial park project to produce 15GWh lithium batteries and 10GWh sodium batteries. It is mainly used in the new energy storage market, 5G communication and IDC data center market. Penghui Energy has officially launched two sodium-ion cells, 91Ah and 3050mAh, which have achieved a breakthrough of 145Wh kg in energy density, a life span of up to 3000 weeks, and industry-leading performance, which will be used in the field of energy storage and light power. It is foreseeable that the access of virtual power plants and the application of a variety of battery technologies will further reduce the cost of communication and energy storage, improve profitability and value, and attract more bidding projects and battery factories to participate.