Lithium News

Tokyo Electric Power Co. Holdings, Nissan Motor and others are joining a Japanese effort that unites the batteries used in electric cars, homes and offices into storage networks in order to boost the use of renewable energy and keep local power grids stable.

The Tokyo-area utility’s Tepco Power Grid unit is working with Kansai Electric Power, home battery maker Eliiy Power and others to develop viable technology for managing scattered small batteries over the internet, in effect treating them as one large battery — a concept known as a virtual power plant, or VPP.

Japan’s Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry aims to have systems capable of handling around 50 megawatts of power — equivalent to around 15,000 households — as of fiscal 2020.

A power supply that falls out of balance with demand can lead to blackouts like the one Japan’s northern island of Hokkaido suffered after a large earthquake in early September. Virtual power plants would let Tepco and peers make fine, nimble adjustments to the flow of power on the grid. The developers initially aim to build systems that can manage 500 batteries at once and make them practical by fiscal 2021.

Solar power generated during the day would be stored in virtual plants and distributed at night rather than going unused. The VPPs also could serve as emergency batteries in a crisis. Households that draw power from them may enjoy lower electricity bills. An eventual goal involves promoting the use of batteries by offering incentives to consumers who contribute to the stability of the power supply.

This month, Nissan and partners including Tohoku Electric Power and trading house Mitsui & Co. began using electric cars hooked up to the power grid to help regulate supply on a trial basis in the northeastern city of Sendai. Proprietary charging stands for Nissan’s Leaf electric car draw energy from the vehicles’ batteries or recharge them based on demand in the region.

Electric cars, which store power in lithium-ion batteries, are hoped to play the part of a large battery for powering home appliances and other devices. Honda Motor also has developed an electric-vehicle charging device that can supply homes with the power stored in cars, as well as convert energy from solar and other sources into power for household use.

Japan wants renewables to provide 22% to 24% of the country’s energy mix by fiscal 2030, up from about 15% in 2016. But weather-dependent sources like solar and wind are volatile by nature, and the resulting instability of their supply has impeded their growth. Virtual power plants would improve capacity for storing energy from renewable sources, making it easier to balance supply and demand.

The sunny southern island of Kyushu generates solar power surpassing demand, and in some cases solar power producers are asked to limit their output. Storing power in VPPs could prevent such energy from going to waste.

One barrier involves price, with home batteries costing around 2 million yen ($17,700). Incentives that let consumers recoup their investment over a number of years may encourage adoption.

Germany has brought VPPs to the practical stage, with operators collectively managing groups of several thousand power sources and turning a profit. Such technologies could promote the storage and use of locally generated renewable energy and reduce reliance on nuclear plants and other massive power-generating facilities.

Carlow is an unlikely staging post in the super-charged rise of a key player in China’s push to dominate the global electric-vehicle revolution.

Ganfeng Lithium sent a team to the town in 2013, shuttling between prospective lithium deposits dotted through the countryside.

It was part of their company’s first foray outside China amid a drive to boost production of key materials needed to make rechargeable batteries,

With projects and partnerships now spanning South America to Australia, Ganfeng is aiming to use proceeds from a share sale in Hong Kong this week to continue a growth spree that’s forecast to make it the industry’s second-largest producer from this year.

“They understood so many years back – in the early 2000s – that lithium would be driving all of the green energy revolution,” said Kirill Klip, a former executive with Ganfeng’s first overseas partner, International Lithium Corp, who joined the working party in Ireland.

“It’s a very hands-on approach, literally – they were working with our geologists turning over rocks, studying all the lithium boulders,” said Mr Klip.

Since that Irish expedition, Ganfeng’s share of refined lithium output has jumped from about 6pc in 2013 to an estimated 11pc this year, according to Roskill Information Services.

It accounts for about a quarter of battery-grade lithium hydroxide, the material that’s now most sought after by carmakers, the researcher’s data shows.

Formed in 2000 in southeastern Jiangxi province and listed in Shenzhen a decade later, Ganfeng’s expertise has been in processing lithium raw materials into the next stage chemical products that can be used in lithium-ion batteries.

Its rapid growth and plans to use its share sale proceeds to lift output further have drawn blue-chip customers anxious to secure long-term supply. Since August, Ganfeng has struck new agreements with Tesla, BMW, and battery producer LG Chem.

“They’ve reacted quickly in a changing market and that’s enabled them to grow their output to market requirements,” Robert Baylis, a London-based analyst with Roskill, said. “Other companies haven’t been able to do that with the same speed.”

That swift growth has been well-timed. Fewer than one million EVs had been sold in total at the start of 2016, there are now about four million on the world’s roads and it’ll take only about another six months to add a further million, according to Bloomberg New Energy Finance.

The jump in lithium output has swelled Ganfeng’s earnings – forecast to rise about a third this year – and catapulted the company ahead of established industry leaders such as FMC Corp in terms of volumes. It’s on course to surpass the second-largest, Chile’s Sociedad Quimica y Minera de Chile, this year, according to consultant CRU Group, and is seen eventually challenging the top player, Albemarle Corp.

“It’s changed the face of the industry – you had the big three and now you’ve gone to the big five,” said Mike Tamlin, chief operating officer of Neometals, a partner with Gangfeng and Mineral Resources, in the Mt Marion mine in Western Australia. “Arguably the pecking order in the big five has changed,” with the expansion of Ganfeng and Tianqi Lithium, he said.

Ganfeng added a stake in Mt Marion in 2015 and made its first overseas investment in 2011 with Canada’s International Lithium, which remains a partner on prospective development projects.

Still, the company remains disciplined on its growth plans, Vice Chairman Wang Xiaoshen said this week during an interview in Shanghai.

“We lithium suppliers still have to be careful not to over-expand our business, said Mr Wang. “We want to do things step-by-step, every year see how the market grows.”

Australia is incredibly rich in the minerals required to make batteries; several companies have already started to cash in as demand for energy storage solutions and electric cars soars. So, which companies are leading the way and how are promising research projects progressing?

Australia is one of the most mineral-rich countries in the world, boasting large amounts of coal, uranium and iron ore.

But recently the focus has been increasingly on minerals such as cobalt, nickel and lithium. These are intrinsic elements of battery technology, demand for which is currently expanding dramatically thanks to an uptake in electric vehicles as well as a need for energy storage.

There has been a corresponding surge in research interest in battery technologies, as academics and companies work to develop the most efficient and economical storage solutions. The Association of Mining and Exploration Companies predicts that the lithium supply chain could grow to be a $2tn industry in Australia. But which batteries are leading the way?

The battery boom

The interest in battery technology has been growing for years, particularly given the recent rise in renewable energy production. Solar and wind power can only be generated intermittently, and thus requires storage to help balance the grid, as baseload fossil fuel plants come offline.

“As alternate technologies become commercially available and the cost of lithium-ion technologies continues to fall, I think the floodgates will open and we’ll see large deployments of energy storage in just about any application you can think of,” says University of Wollongong associate research fellow in battery R&D Jonathan Knott.

“Solar PV installations in Australia underwent a huge period of growth in the last 10 years so that now in 2018 there are 1.84 million installations across Australia. Many of these installations would benefit from a battery combined with the solar PV generation – at the right price point – so there’s a massive opportunity for adoption of batteries in Australia.”

The battery market is still dominated by lead-acid batteries, but this is on track to change as lithium-ion (li-ion) batteries increasingly become the norm. The global li-ion battery market accounted for $29.86bn in 2017, and is expected to reach $139.36bn by 2026.

“There are a number of reasons for lithium-based batteries becoming the dominant technology, both technological and economic,” says Knott. “Lithium-based batteries have a high energy density and a high specific energy. What this means in practice is you can make lithium-based batteries that are small and light that can still store a large amount of energy when compared to other technologies.”

Australia’s bountiful minerology has allowed it to take full advantage of the growing demand for li-ion technology. It not only produces 60% of the world’s lithium, but also extracts all of the minerals needed to produce the technology, with the exception of soda ash.

“Although many of the materials used in lithium-ion batteries are relatively scarce, difficult, expensive or damaging to mine – such as lithium, cobalt and nickel – the supply chains and manufacturing processes have had decades to be built and refined; the first commercial lithium-ion battery went on sale in 1991,” explains Knott.

The companies catching on

Companies have been quick to take advantage of the increased interest in battery technology, in particular in light of the successful Tesla mega-battery in South Australia. Installed in 2017, it is the largest li-ion battery in the world, with a capacity of 100MW. When fully charged it is capable of powering 30,000 homes for an hour.

“The Tesla ‘big battery’ has been a fascinating story on a number of fronts,” says Knott. “The fact that a relatively dry topic was able to dominate a significant part of the news cycles for weeks is a testament to the marketing power of Tesla and Elon Musk.

“This battery was designed to be used for a number of applications – including ‘firming’ the Hornsdale Wind Farm, providing frequency control and ancillary services (FCAS). These are specialised applications that are not necessarily directly applicable to commercial or residential consumers, however the value and impact of the awareness-raising the Tesla battery has had on these consumers should not be understated.”

Smaller Australian companies are also driving forward the battery revolution. Ecoult is focusing on a CSIRO-developed lead-acid/supercapacitor hybrid battery, while Redflow and VSUN Energy are both producing types of flow batteries.

“What this shows is Australia has some great applications for widespread deployment of energy storage technologies; we’re at the forefront of research and development of new and exciting energy storage technologies, and we’ve got a number of innovative companies bringing these technologies to market,” says Knott.

“The fact that we now have an increasing consumer awareness of the potential for energy storage, from residential through to commercial and grid-scale applications, means that Australia is on the forefront of deploying energy storage technologies, and is often used by international companies as a testbed for their new products.”

However, there is concern that despite its great mineral wealth, not enough is being done to ensure that Australia benefits from the vast potential the battery market offers. A report by Future Smart Strategies, published in January, suggested that unless more is done to develop the total market value downstream, it could lose out significantly.
“It is crucial that action is taken quickly so Australia takes a share of the thousands of new jobs (skilled and semi-skilled) in this two trillion-dollar value chain,” the report says.

More to batteries than lithium

Research is underway at institutions including the University of Wollongong to develop alternative battery technologies. Despite its advantages, li-ion battery technology is also highly flammable, and subject to ‘thermal runaway’, or uncontrolled temperature increases.

“There are many different types of energy storage technologies that are being developed in Australia and worldwide,” says Knott. “As noted previously, lithium-based batteries have a near-monopoly on many of the applications and are essentially a hammer that is being used to crack every nut, however it is likely that these alternative technologies will be useful and desirable for particular applications.”

Alternatives include sodium-ion batteries, which can be produced using similar methods to li-ion, but they use none of the scarce elements necessary for li-ion; instead the abundance of sodium reduces the cost. Ultra-batteries combine aspects of lead-acid batteries with supercapacitors, in an effort to gain the benefits of both.

Flow batteries are also being pursued, which rely on liquid flowing through membranes to generate charge. “There are a number of advantages of this technology, including that these types of batteries are typically fire-retardant, which in turn makes them very safe,” says Knott. “In addition, it’s possible to increase or decrease the overall energy storage capacity of these types of batteries very easily – you can simply add a bigger container of the electrode liquids to give it more capacity.”

Meanwhile, li-ion batteries are far from perfect, and a number of research groups are working to advance the technology.

“Australia is a serious player on the world stage of energy storage materials research and development,” says Knott. “Australia is in the top 10 countries in the world for lithium-ion battery research outputs and the University of Wollongong is the leading Australian university in both lithium and sodium-ion research.

“There are many other cutting-edge research groups around Australia working on energy storage materials that are making significant impacts on the development of energy storage technologies – from the fundamental materials science all the way through to how these technologies interact with the grid.”

Australia’s great mineral wealth, along with the pursuits of companies and researchers, are allowing it to become a leader in battery technology. But to truly get ahead, the country must make sure it benefits from the entire value chain, pursuing the manufacture of batteries, as well as research and mining.

“Australia has the raw material deposits to make lithium-ion batteries entirely on our own – however the current strategy is to dig up materials and send them overseas to be processed into batteries,” says Knott. “This not only leaves significant value on the table, but it also leaves us beholden to other countries for our energy storage needs.

“There are two ways that this risk will be mitigated – through on-shore manufacturing of lithium-ion batteries, with plans for a manufacturing facility near Darwin recently announced, and by other technologies becoming more commercially feasible. One issue that will always be a problem is the high cost of labour in Australia, which makes the economics of onshore manufacturing difficult to work in any sort of manufacturing industry.”

Funds betting on lithium-ion rechargeable battery related companies have become one of the most actively traded thematic exchange-traded funds (ETFs) just a month after their launch in the South Korean bourse, according to the Korea Exchange on Wednesday.

Latest KRX data showed on Wednesday that Kospi-listed “Tiger Secondary Cell” ETF’s transaction volume on the same day reached 649,564 shares and marked as the best-selling thematic ETF except those tracking Kospi, Kosdaq futures indices. Retail investors have continued net purchasing the Tiger Secondary Cell as well as another rechargeable battery tech-themed ETF “KODEX Secondary Battery Industry” since their launch on Sept. 12.

Daily transaction volume of the Tiger Secondary Cell averaged 593,538 shares and that of KODEX Secondary Battery Industry 510,221 shares so far. Transaction volumes of the two ETFs have grown steadily during the first 16 trading days since the launch due to the high volatility of lithium-ion battery related stocks, market experts explained. Higher volatility makes security riskier, but such investment often carries high potential returns. The prices of the two EFTs have retreated around 8 percent from the first trading session of this month on average, but retail investors have stayed as net buyers.

The underlying stocks of Tiger Secondary Cell and KODEX Secondary Battery Industry ETFs include shares of the country’s leading lithium-ion rechargeable battery tech companies, namely, Posco ChemTech Co., Samsung SDI Co., and LG Chem Ltd.

Stock prices of those Li-ion battery tech companies had surged until the end of last month but they have reversed course this month ahead of the third-quarter earnings reporting. The news of the Chinese government cutting down electric car subsidies has also weighed on them. Market experts, however, forecast demand for electric vehicles will remain strong, leading retail investors to buy the related stocks at low prices.

In Seoul trading on Thursday, Tiger Secondary Cell closed 5.15 percent lower at 8,845 won ($7.74) and KODEX Secondary Battery Industry 4.38 percent lower at 8,955 won.

Okinawa Scooters has launched the Ridge+, an 800-watt, BLDC Motor (Water-Proof) e-scooter powered by Lithium-ion battery. Ridge+ is available in two colours – Lucent Orange/ Magna Grey & Midnight Blue. The company says that the Ridge+ e-scooter builds on the footsteps of its predecessor – the Ridge. The Ridge+ e-scooter has a top speed of 55km/hr and a mileage of 120km/charge. The electric scooter also features a loading capacity of 150kg. The Ridge+ has been priced at Rs 64,998 (ex-showroom, Pan India).

The Ridge+ also gets features like front and rear drum brakes, central locking, anti-theft alarm, keyless entry etc. In a first, it also features E-ABS (Electronic-Assisted Braking System) with regenerative energy and a Find My Scooter Function that allows customers to remotely locate your scooter. During the inaugural month of October 2018, the company aims to roll out 500 units of Ridge+ in a few states, followed with 1500 units of Ridge+ in November 2018.

Commenting on the vision behind the vehicle, Jeetender Sharma, MD, Okinawa Autotech said, “After the positive response garnered by Ridge and Praise, Ridge+ is the result of Okinawa’s sustained desire to keep offering Indian commuters best-in-class EVs which are not only equal, but even better than their in-class conventional fuel variants. The Ridge+ offers great convenience by providing the detachable battery which makes the charging at ease. User can take out the battery & carry to their home or office for charging purpose. Equipped with a Micro-charger featuring Auto-cut that get the scooter up and running in 2 hours flat.”

SK Innovation will invest 400 billion won (US$353.8 million) to build a Li-ion battery separator plant in China.

The plant is set to start commercial production in the third quarter of 2020 with an annual capacity of 340 million square meters of polymer lithium-ion battery separator (LiBS) and 130 million square meters of ceramic-coated separator (CCS), SK Innovation said.

Separators play a significant role in the thermal safety of lithium ion cells—critically important in applications such as electric vehicles.

SK Innovation is the first company in Korea and the third in the world exclusively to develop separators, a key component in lithium-ion batteries. SK Innovation began to operate the first commercial assembly line in November 2005, and has since developed and produced separators for various IT devices and heat-resistant separators for electric vehicle batteries in nine assembly lines.

SK is seeking to develop LiBS with improved properties using new polymers, resulting in thinner films, high transmission, high strength, and high heat resistance.

Ceramic-coated separators are also an option for addressing some of the drawbacks of polymer film separators—notably catastrophic shirnkage at high temperatures.

The plant—the first overseas project for SK Innovation’s material business—will boost SK Innovation’s total lithium-ion battery separator production volume to 850 million square meters per year.

This investment will help us build a springboard to become the world’s biggest in terms of wet separator market share, a notch up from the current position as the world’s second largest. We will also continue to work with China as the world’s premiere technology developer.

—SK Innovation CEO Jun Kim

SK Innovation set up SK Hi-Tech Battery Materials Co. in China, a wholly owned subsidiary, to finance the investment in the country.

Currently, SK Innovation supplies batteries to Hyundai Motor Co. and Kia Motors Corp.