Leading titanium dioxide company CNNC spent 510 million RMB on vanadium batteries

CNNC spent a lot of money to develop vanadium batteries

In recent years, titanium dioxide companies have entered the field of new energy and laid out the battery industry chain. On October 13, 2022, titanium dioxide leader CNNC announced that the company plans to invest to establish Huili Vanergy Mining, with a registered capital of 510 million RMB, and the company holds 100% of its shares.

In terms of business scope, the general items of Huili Vanergy Mining include mineral washing and processing; Sales of metal ores, including mineral resource exploration; Mining of non coal mine mineral resources.

In July this year, CNNC also signed a cooperation agreement with Weilide. The two sides will carry out comprehensive and in-depth cooperation around the whole industrial chain of vanadium flow battery energy storage.

Vanadium battery has huge market potential

Founded in 1989, CNNC is a famous titanium dioxide manufacturer in China. Its main products are high-grade rutile titanium dioxide, which are sold to more than 50 countries and regions worldwide. CNNC’s investment in vanadium battery is based on the huge potential of the industry.

Vanadium battery, which is called all vanadium redox flow battery, is an redox battery in which the active substance is circulating liquid. It has the advantages of good safety, long cycle life, green and environmental protection.

It is known that the electrolyte of vanadium battery and the stack are independent of each other, and the electrolyte is stored in an external tank separately, and the electrolyte cannot flow to the stack independently, so it needs to be transported internally through external pumps and pipelines.

With the gradual improvement of the industrial chain, the advantages of vanadium batteries have been recognized by the market and will usher in a new stage of development. It is estimated that the new scale of vanadium battery in China will reach 2.3GW in 2025 and 4.5GW in 2030.

Especially in the field of energy storage, vanadium battery has great potential. There are many great energy storage battery companies in China. It is estimated that the cumulative installed capacity of vanadium battery energy storage projects will reach 24GW in 2030, and the new market size will reach 40.5 billion RMB in that year.

China’s vanadium resources and policies are conducive to the development of vanadium batteries

China is rich in vanadium resources. According to statistics, as of 2021, China has proved 9.5 million tons of vanadium ore reserves available for mining, accounting for 39.6% of the global reserves. The vanadium output accounts for 66% of the global reserves, which provides a resource guarantee for the development of vanadium batteries.

In terms of policy, China has also issued several documents to support the development of vanadium batteries: In February 2022, China issued an implementation plan for the development of new energy storage, which included 100 megawatt liquid flow battery technology as one of the key directions for tackling new energy storage core technology and equipment.

On June 29, relevant documents issued by China clearly pointed out that medium and large electrochemical energy storage power stations should not use ternary lithium battery, sodium sulfur batteries, and should not use power batteries for cascade utilization. The insiders said that under the new policy background, the vanadium battery based liquid flow battery will become an important part of electrochemical energy storage.

In terms of major projects, China’s first GWh full vanadium liquid flow energy storage power station was started on September 20, 2022. The installed capacity of the project is 1 million kilowatts. In terms of energy storage, 250MW/1GWh all vanadium liquid flow battery is used. The project is planned to be connected to the grid by the end of 2023.

At the same time, Dalian Liquid Flow Battery Energy Storage and Peak shaving Power Station, the world’s largest liquid flow battery energy storage and peak shaving power station with the largest power and capacity, has entered the final stage of grid connection commissioning, and is expected to be officially put into operation in the middle of October.

Dalian Liquid Flow Battery Energy Storage and Peak shaving Power Station is the first national large-scale chemical energy storage demonstration project approved by China in April 2016, with a total construction scale of 200 MW (power)/800 MWh (energy storage).

Many companies invest a lot in vanadium battery

In addition to CNNC, many companies are accelerating the expansion of vanadium batteries. On the evening of October 11, 2022, Vanadium Titanium announced that it planned to jointly invest with Rongke Power to establish Vanadium Rong Energy Storage Technology.

According to the plan, Vanadium Rong Energy Storage Technology will build an electrolyte production line with a capacity of 2000 m3/year in Panzhihua, China, in 2022; From 2023 to 2024, according to the growth of vanadium battery energy storage market, it will negotiate to invest and build a capacity of 60000 m3/year vanadium electrolyte.

It is worth noting that on September 8, 2022, Pangang Group Vanadium Titanium&Resources officially changed its name to Vanadium Titanium, aiming to reaffirm that vanadium and titanium are the company’s strategic key development businesses. The previous day, Vanadium Titanium also released a fixed increase plan, and the total amount of funds raised is expected to not exceed 2.28 billion RMB (inclusive).

After deducting the issuance cost, it is intended to be used for vanadium battery electrolyte industrialization automation and application research and development (the raised capital investment amount is 55 million RMB) and other projects.

It is expected that the vanadium battery electrolyte industrialization automation and application R&D project will lay a solid foundation for the engineering and industrial development of the new generation of all vanadium flow battery technology, promote the innovation of vanadium battery electrolyte technology, reduce the cost of vanadium battery energy storage technology, and promote the development of vanadium battery industry.

On September 26, 2022, WTECL released an announcement that it will use Detai Energy Storage as the development platform of the energy storage industry, accelerate the company’s transformation and development plan to the energy storage industry, and achieve the company’s full industrial chain development in the energy storage field of vanadium flow battery.

The industrial chain may includes energy storage material resource integration, purification and smelting, new energy storage materials, electrolyte processing, stacks, equipment R&D and manufacturing, and project integration. On August 31, WTECL said that it invested with HaiDe Limited to establish and control Detai Energy Storage.

LB Group, also a leader in the titanium dioxide industry, said that the company’s battery material research institute is currently conducting vanadium battery technology research and development, and storing relevant technologies.

In the future, it will actively promote the industrialization of vanadium battery materials according to the vanadium battery market. In addition, State Grid Yingda, Zhiguang Electric, Yicheng New Energy and other companies are also investing in the vanadium battery industry chain.

CNNC also has a layout for lithium batteries

Before vanadium battery, CNNC also has a layout for lithium batteries. As early as February 2021, CNNC announced that it would invest in the construction of a project with an annual output of 500000 tons of lithium iron phosphate. At that time, the total investment was expected to be 12.108 billion RMB.

In May 2021, CNNC disclosed the plan for non-public issuance of A-shares in 2021, and the total amount of funds to be raised is not more than 7.091 billion RMB, which will be used for recycling titanium dioxide deep processing projects, water-soluble monoammonium phosphate (water-soluble fertilizer) resource recycling projects, 500000 tons of iron phosphate projects and supplementary working capital.

Among them, the total investment of the project with an annual output of 500000 tons of iron phosphate is 3.830 billion RMB, and the proposed amount of raised funds is 3.385 billion RMB. The first phase of the project will achieve an annual output of 100000 tons of lithium iron phosphate, which is expected to be put into production in 2023.

In China, there are a lot of famous lithium iron phosphate power battery manufacturers. On August 5 this year, CNNC said that the company’s 100000 ton iron phosphate project with an annual output of 500000 tons of lithium iron phosphate (Phase I) had started construction. It was planned to carry out trial production with materials by the end of 2022, and then conduct mass production according to production and product verification.

The demonstration project of nano lithium iron phosphate battery materials jointly built by the company and LS Group has been successfully completed. The iron phosphate products have been sent to the positive material manufacturer for verification, and the lithium iron phosphate products will be sent to the battery manufacturer for verification. On August 12, CNNC applied for the approval of the CSRC to raise no more than 7.091 billion RMB.