Jingneng New Energy explores sodium battery technology in depth, opening a new chapter in the energy

With the renewable energy frenzy sweeping the world, energy storage technology, as a key supporting technology for the construction of a new energy system, has risen to become an indispensable link in the entire energy ecosystem. Various technology giants have entered the energy storage track, with the intention of grabbing the high ground of the future energy market. In this tide of energy revolution, Jingneng New Energy actively layout energy storage industry, deep plowing sodium-ion battery field, fully explore the potential of new energy storage technology, for the future energy revolution to add a blazing fire!

Why develop energy storage?

China ranks first in the world in solar and wind power generation, as well as in the photovoltaic and wind power industries, but these renewable sources of power generation have the disadvantages of being non-storable, non-transportable and unstable.

The generation, transmission and consumption of electricity in a power system are completed simultaneously, and a dynamic balance must be maintained between the processes of generating, supplying and consuming electricity, i.e., as much electricity is generated, as much electricity must be consumed. However, wind energy and solar energy are special substances without exact shape, and people cannot accurately achieve the balance between power generation and power consumption by controlling wind and sunlight.

Taking wind power generation as an example, power can only be generated when the wind speed reaches a certain level, and the amount of power generated varies with the level of wind power. Generally speaking, power generation is greatest in the middle of the night and lowest in the middle of the day, which is exactly the opposite of the demand for electricity in human society, and can easily lead to a shortage of power at peak demand and a surplus of power at low demand. Relevant data show that the daily fluctuation of wind power can reach up to 80%, while the daily fluctuation of photovoltaic can reach up to 100%. In addition, they have seasonal cycles.

With the advancement of the dual-carbon goal, the construction of new energy power systems such as wind power and photovoltaic is in full swing. However, in the event of extreme weather with no wind or light, how to ensure a stable power supply has undoubtedly become a huge challenge.

At the same time, China's annual power abandonment exceeds 50 billion kilowatt-hours! The so-called abandoned power is to send out electricity for nothing and not into the power grid, in 2020, the national major basin abandoned hydropower volume of about 30.1 billion kilowatt-hours, the national abandoned wind power volume of about 16.6 billion kilowatt-hours, the national abandoned light power volume of 5.26 billion kilowatt-hours, the total amount of abandoned power for 51.96 billion kilowatt-hours! Calculated by 1 kWh of electricity 0.59 yuan, China's annual waste of new energy electricity up to 30.6 billion yuan!

On the one hand, there is instability in wind and solar power generation; on the other hand, the phenomenon of "abandoned wind and light" leads to huge economic losses. How to ensure the stable and efficient operation of the power system has become one of the urgent propositions of the society.

Therefore, the concept of energy storage came into being, which can solve the problem of unstorable and uncontrollable renewable energy sources, such as wind and solar energy, so as to achieve the balance of power supply and demand, and the stability of the power system, the problem of economy and the problem of power quality can be solved.

The so-called energy storage technology is a technology that converts energy that is not easy to store into a more convenient to use or more economical form of energy for storage, and releases the stored energy in a specific form of energy in the future when energy supply is needed. Energy storage technology helps to solve the problem of instability of renewable energy, improve the efficiency of energy use, and provide more stable and reliable support for the development of renewable energy.

Among them, electrochemical energy storage is the most popular and rapidly developing energy storage technology, which is often referred to as "battery energy storage". Battery energy storage is very flexible, not easily subject to geographical constraints, the investment can be large or small, very suitable for small photovoltaic, wind power and other distributed power stations.

Development of sodium batteries to alleviate the dilemma of lithium mine "neck"

At present, the most mature development of electrochemical energy storage is lithium-ion battery technology. However, in recent years, the market for sodium-ion batteries to replace lithium-ion batteries is increasingly called for.

The global distribution of lithium resources is uneven, South America's Bolivia, Argentina, Chile, three countries have 58% of the world's lithium resources, while China's lithium resources share is only 6% of the world.

As the world's largest power battery production countries, China's total power battery production in 2022 accounted for 77% of the world, in order to maintain this important position, China is bound to need to import a large number of lithium resources, which means that China's supply of lithium resources there is a security risk.

In 2011, the three South American countries proposed the formation of a South American lithium producer organization, "Lithium Pec", to control lithium pricing power; in March 2023, the President of Bolivia said that he planned to work with Argentina, Chile, and Peru to "develop a policy to ensure that the four countries, in conditions of sovereignty, as a supplier of lithium". suppliers under conditions of sovereignty". If the lithium producing countries successfully "group", master lithium resource pricing, is likely to lead to monopoly, which will be extremely unfavorable to the healthy development of China's power battery industry.

Therefore, the development of resources that can replace lithium is imminent.

Sodium is the sixth highest content of elements in the earth's crust, crustal abundance of 2.36%, much higher than the lithium element of 0.0065%, and in the world distribution is uniform, coupled with the sodium-ion batteries and lithium-ion batteries with the technical principles of the same, similar performance, the production process is also similar, and thus the sodium-ion as raw materials for energy storage have been upgraded by the countries on the agenda, the development of sodium batteries strategic significance is self-evident.

Sodium batteries with multiple advantages are highly suitable for energy storage applications

Sodium-ion batteries are not new and have the following advantages over lithium-ion batteries:

1.Good high and low temperature performance: the normal operating temperature range of sodium-ion battery is -40℃-80℃, the high temperature discharge capacity is more than 100% of the rated capacity, and the capacity retention rate of some products at -20℃ can reach 88%, which is significantly better than that of LiFePO4 with a capacity retention rate of about 60-70%;

2. High safety: lithium-ion batteries are very prone to a large number of side reactions under the conditions of extrusion, puncture, short-circuit, overcharge, etc., thus leading to thermal runaway. Sodium-ion batteries, on the other hand, do not catch fire or explode after short-circuit, puncture, extrusion and other tests, so their safety is more stable.

In a variety of application scenarios, energy storage systems must include characteristics such as high safety, excellent high and low temperature performance, and long cycle life. The performance characteristics of sodium-ion batteries are highly compatible with these requirements, making them a great potential in the field of energy storage. For example, household storage has high safety requirements for batteries, and power storage and communication storage (especially in areas with large temperature differences between winter and summer) require batteries with excellent high and low-temperature performance to resist life decay. ...... Therefore, sodium-ion batteries have become a hot spot in the research of current energy storage technology.

Nevertheless, sodium-ion battery energy storage technology has not been popularized on a large scale. This is mainly because sodium-ion battery energy storage has high technical barriers - sodium-ion batteries are currently facing the biggest difficulty is the choice of cathode materials. Lithium-ion batteries have already identified nickel-cobalt manganese/nickel-cobalt aluminum ternary structure, lithium iron phosphate structure, while the anode material for sodium-ion batteries is still in the research and development stage. The uncertainty of the anode material makes the current research cost of sodium-ion batteries high. However, with the deepening of scientific research and the development of technology, sodium-ion batteries have a great potential for future development and are likely to become an important choice in the field of energy storage.

Strong alliance to seize the sodium-ion battery

Recently, Jingneng New Energy and Jiangsu ChuanYi Technology Co., Ltd (hereinafter referred to as "ChuanYi Technology") jointly developed and produced sodium-ion batteries, and continued to promote the application of sodium-ion batteries in energy storage scenarios.

Transy Technology is a national high-tech enterprise issued and listed on the A-share of the Shenzhen Stock Exchange. Since entering the sodium-ion battery industry in 2018, it has taken sodium-ion energy storage and smart microgrid technology as its core driving force, and has set up a power energy storage research institute consisting of a team of 5 top academicians in the field of domestic and foreign materials, 9 BoDs, and 50 PhDs. The sodium-ion battery products developed and produced by Transfar Technology have a single energy density of 150Wh/kg-160Wh/kg, and have reached a cycle life of more than 5,000 times, which can meet the needs of A00-class cars, small power cars, two-wheeled vehicles and energy storage customers, and all the technical parameters of the test are in the leading position in the industry, which fully demonstrates Transfar's excellent strength and rich experience in the research and development of sodium-ion batteries in the industry. The test parameters are in the leading position in the industry, fully demonstrating the excellent strength of Transfar Technology in the industry and rich experience in sodium-ion battery research and development.

As a specialized, special and new small giant enterprise, a national high-tech enterprise, and an industry-academia-research base of the National Engineering Research Center for Electrical Energy Conversion and Control, Jingneng New Energy has been focusing on the research, development and application of solar energy as its main business since its initial founding in 2012, and it has a strong technical research and development team and abundant technical strength in the field of energy storage. In recent years, Jingneng New Energy and Sany Heavy Industry, a leading domestic construction machinery company, have reached a comprehensive and in-depth cooperation in the field of charging, power exchange, etc., and Jingneng New Energy's R&D technology and brand influence have been further enhanced. At present, Jingneng New Energy has grown into a one-stop optical storage charging and switching equipment overall solution provider, the product line covers a wide range of "charging piles, switching stations, optical storage charging, cloud platform" and other areas, the business scope throughout Asia, Africa, Europe, South America, North America and other countries. However, Jingneng New Energy is not satisfied with this, but actively expanding the scope of business, focusing on the efficient use of energy, with a forward-looking vision of the overall planning, is committed to building a "light, storage" multi-energy complementary energy pattern, to promote the construction of a new energy system.

The cooperation between Jingneng New Energy and Transfar Technology can be described as a strong combination. By sharing technology and resources, the two sides can improve R&D efficiency and production capacity, and accelerate the transformation of production, learning and research achievements in the field of sodium-ion battery energy storage. In addition, the cooperation between the two sides will also accelerate the implementation of large-scale sodium-ion battery energy storage demonstration projects, and jointly promote the large-scale development of the sodium-ion battery energy storage industry, to build a new energy system to provide strong technical support.

Market Outlook for the Energy Storage Industry

In today's rapidly developing energy sector, the outlook for the energy storage industry is in the spotlight. With the promotion of carbon neutral policy and the growth of power market demand, energy storage policy support has increased. In January this year, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology and other six ministries and commissions issued a "guide on promoting the development of energy electronics industry," focusing on new energy storage products is the ballast of the new energy system, put forward the new energy storage products and technologies to enhance the ability to supply action, a clear lithium-ion batteries, lithium-ion materials and equipment, sodium-ion batteries and other new energy storage technology and product specific development direction.

With the growth of power market demand and the upgrading of energy structure, it is believed that sodium-ion battery energy storage industry will usher in more development opportunities and broader market prospects. A securities company made a market forecast: by 2030, the actual shipment of sodium-ion batteries may reach 347GWh, according to this projection, between 2024 and 2030, the compound growth of sodium battery shipments will reach 58.1%. This is undoubtedly a good blueprint for the sodium-ion battery energy storage industry.

In the face of future broad market prospects and increasingly fierce market competition, Jingneng New Energy will always maintain a keen market insight and forward-looking thinking, and continue to increase R & D investment and technological innovation. Through close cooperation with excellent enterprises such as Transfar Technology, we will jointly promote the development and application of sodium-ion batteries and other new energy storage technologies, and make greater contributions to the construction of a new energy system and the promotion of the energy revolution!