APEC China CEO Forum 2022

Batteries are the key to China’s green development — APEC China CEO Forum 2022APEC China CEO Forum 2022

Batteries are the key to China’s green development — APEC China CEO Forum 2022

Zijing Fu

posted on November 7, 2022 0:57 pmEditor : Wang Boyuan

Over the past 20 years, China has invested heavily in green energy-related fields. Its energy R&D expense ranked as the second largest in the world in 2020.

The Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation 2022 China CEO Forum was held in Beijing on November 3, 2022. Green energy became a popular topic during the one-day forum, with numerous speakers addressing it repeatedly.

In 2021, APEC members agreed to collectively support the growth of the list of environmental products, to further promote the liberalization and facilitation of environmental services, and to lead the development of green global trade policy.

Following the trend, China has been actively participating in and promoting the construction of the APEC Green Supply Chain Network, according to Li Fei, Assistant Minister of China’s Ministry of Commerce. The country established the first demonstration center in Tianjin, China, to promote the elimination of "green barriers" to trade and investment in the Asia-Pacific region and the in-depth development of regional trade and investment.

Over the past 20 years, China has invested heavily in related fields. With over $8 billion in R&D in 2020, its energy R&D expense ranked as the second largest in the world, focusing mainly on fossil combustion and renewable energy-related low-carbon technologies.

In terms of research results, China's international patents have been proliferating since 2008. China had gained over 75% of international patents for renewable energy technologies by the year 2020. China's renewable energy research is presently oriented on batteries, solar photovoltaic, electric vehicles, and charging, with the cumulative number of patents for all three exceeding 50% of the world's total, according to a research report shared at the forum.

According to Yang Yinkai, Deputy Secretary General of China's National Development and Reform Commission, China has made progress in five areas, including the steady development of carbon peaks by 2030 and carbon neutrality by 2060 goals, the optimization of industrial structure, the transition to green and low-carbon energy sources, the efficiency of resource utilization, and active participation in the global effort to combat climate change.

The country is at the forefront of going green —it has around 10 billion tonnes of carbon emissions per year, according to statistics cited by Li Can, Director of the Solar Energy Research Department at the Dalian Institute of Chemical Engineering of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. The large amounts of emissions push China to develop solutions, with the hope of applying them to other Asia and Pacific countries with similar emission patterns.

Batteries are at the center of China’s green initiatives since a large amount of emissions comes from transportation scenarios such as gasoline and diesel cars. Indeed, such technology can also be extended to various scenarios, such as the industrial sector, and has the potential to fuel trillion-dollar high-end industries, according to Li Can.

"Power and energy storage batteries are the key technologies to support our green development," says Huang Xuejie, a researcher at the Institute of Physics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, who cites the long-term partnership agreement between German car rental company Sixt and China's EV leader BYD as an example. Sixt, the first car rental company in Europe to offer BYD cars, has placed an initial order for "several thousands" of BYD EVs, which will be delivered starting in the fourth quarter of this year. Through 2028, the business intends to acquire about 100,000 EVs from BYD.

EVs have become a trademark of Chinese products, particularly since EVs manufactured by Chinese firms have reached the premium markets of Europe and North America. However, rapid development brings with it energy-related restrictions imposed due to resource shortages and geopolitical concerns.

China currently has a good handle on lithium iron phosphate, a standard material for power battery production. According to Huang, China produced 490,000 tonnes of lithium iron phosphate in 2021, accounting for almost 99% of the total global output of approximately 495,000 tonnes. Furthermore, China is striving to develop advanced technology solutions to conquer potential resource limitations in the future.

The Ministry of Technology in China founded a program concentrating on cobalt-free cathode materials. The SongShan Lake Materials Lab in Dongguan, Guangzhou, has dedicated teams of scientists focusing on energy-related projects such as lithium-ion batteries. Additionally, the lab partners with automobile manufacturers such as the Dongfeng Group.

In addition to labs, Chinese enterprises are also looking for innovative ways to power EVs. In the first nine months of this year, CATL spent more than 10 billion RMB on R&D and assembled a team of more than 12,000 R&D professionals, according to Wu Kai, the Chief Scientist of CATL, whose statement was delivered on video at the conference.

CATL had previously announced that it would officially mass-produce sodium-ion batteries in 2023. Its first-generation sodium ion battery is expected to have an energy density of 160 Wh/kg and can be charged to 80% SoC in 15 minutes. Such solutions alleviate the dilemma of the shortage of lithium raw materials as well as address the lack of access to raw materials due to geopolitical problems.

According to Zeng Yingzhe, a speaker at the forum and partner at Linear Capital, which was founded in 2014 and has been focusing on the new energy track ever since, the new-energy sector has great prospects despite being in its infancy because it not only serves to improve and protect the environment but also entails the responsibility of building a better future for humanity.