Top 2 growing trend for energy storage battery cell

What is an energy storage battery cell

The energy storage system is mainly composed of energy storage battery Pack, energy storage inverter (PCS), energy management system (EMS), battery management system (BMS), among which the energy storage battery Pack is the most important part, accounting for the entire energy storage 60% of system cost.

The energy storage battery Pack consists of an electric cell. The energy storage battery cell is the key device in an electrochemical energy storage system, determining the system’s safety, efficiency, and cost.

Types of energy storage battery cells

At present, energy storage  cell is mainly lithium iron phosphate battery. You can check our battery cell to learn more aout the basics of battery cells.

According to the shape classification, energy storage cell is mainly divided into three categories: square, cylindrical and pouch batteries. Different shapes of energy storage cell is suitable for different capacity specifications. Square cells are mainly 50Ah-100Ah, pouch batteries are 30Ah-80Ah and large cylinders are 10Ah-50Ah. You can check our top 10 pouch battery manufacturers in the world to learn more about pouch battery.

By capacity, there are mainly 50Ah, 100Ah, 150Ah, 200Ah, 280Ah and other models. Among them, 50Ah and 100Ah are mainly used for household energy storage, communication energy storage, small-scale industrial and commercial energy storage, etc. 150Ah, 200Ah, 280Ah, 280Ah and above models, etc. are mainly large-capacity square cores, which are used for large-scale energy storage, including large-scale industrial and commercial energy storage, new energy power stations, power grids and other scenarios.

Development trend of energy storage battery cells

With the maturity of the market, the application of energy storage system in various scenarios such as user side, grid side and power side has been deepening. Energy storage cells are also becoming more and more specialised.

In other words, the design and development, process selection and manufacturing path of energy storage cells are becoming more exclusive around lower cost of electricity consumption, longer cycle life and higher safety performance. The difference between energy storage cells and power batteries is becoming more and more obvious.

Cylindrical becomes an important direction

At present, in the field of household energy storage, battery cells are still dominated by 50Ah, 100Ah square aluminum shell battery. However, large cylindrical batteries have become an important direction for household energy storage cells.

First of all, large cylindrical batteries have high production efficiency and can significantly reduce production costs. Cylindrical batteries are the earliest commercially available lithium batteries, with mature production processes and higher assembly efficiency than square and soft pack batteries.

Secondly, cylindrical can reduce the risk of thermal runaway and improve safety. Large cylindrical cells, with their curved surface to a certain extent, limit heat transfer between cells, even in the case of full contact there is still a large gap, solving the problem of side heat transfer of square and soft pack cells.

Thirdly, the smaller capacity of the single cell improves the adaptability of the battery, and the module form and charge capacity are more diverse, which can match the different charge capacities of household storage and portable energy storage systems.

Fourthly, the smaller capacity of the single cell is suitable for household storage and high voltage systems. At present, the household energy storage market is still mainly in the global. The European household storage market, particularly in the Nordic + German-speaking regions, is undergoing product iterations from low voltage to high voltage systems, raising the voltage plateau in order to reduce current and ultimately reduce system heat generation and improve discharge efficiency.

The higher voltage plateau requires smaller capacity cells if the total energy storage system capacity is to remain constant. Energy storage cells in the low voltage platform are mostly 100Ah, while the high voltage platform gradually transitions to 50Ah.

Smaller individual cell capacities mean that more cells need to be connected in series, placing higher demands on the consistency and stability of battery manufacturers’ cell products.

Large battery cells become the future mainstream

At present, a prominent trend of large energy storage cores is towards large capacity development. Head energy storage core manufacturers, are actively launching large-capacity, long-cycle cores. Before, 280Ah was the mainstream product for large cells. However, in the past two years, the major manufacturers have launched higher capacity products, with the momentum of catching up with 280Ah.

Some battery industry sources pointed out that the energy storage battery manufacturers launched higher capacity battery cells, is an important product competition strategy. This also indicates that the large battery cell will become the future mainstream.

The scale of energy storage power stations is getting bigger and bigger, and the advantages of large cells in power storage applications are obvious. Especially in terms of solar energy storage, top 10 solar energy storage battery manufacturers in China are all waiting for the arrival of large batteries.

Firstly, in practical applications, it is easier to obtain high volumetric energy density with large cores.

Second, 280Ah and above large capacity cores applied in large storage end can reduce the number of cores and structural parts, improve management accuracy and volume energy density.Third, at the same time, system integration assembly can be simplified, reducing integration difficulties, thus effectively reducing installation costs, with obvious advantages.

However, high-capacity batteries also face challenges. The first is the increase in size and capacity of the core, resulting in poor heat dissipation performance of the core itself. The second is the low production efficiency of large cells, which is far less than that of 50Ah and 100Ah.

Energy storage battery market competition pattern

At present, China has become the main supply region for global energy storage batteries. 2020 to 2022, the global market pattern of energy storage batteries has changed dramatically.

Chinese battery manufacturers have become the main supplier, and it is expected that in the next two years, the gap between the shipments of Chinese battery manufacturers and global brands will continue to widen.

Industry participants are mainly power battery factories, with some battery manufacturers in the lead and the industry head effect evident. With the hot development of the energy storage industry, more and more manufacturers are starting to join the track. The energy storage battery cell capacity echelon has basically formed, but the internal competition pattern is not stable, and new entry battery manufacturers are growing rapidly.