As climate change has been attached more importance to by the world, countries have put forward “double carbon” targets to optimize their energy structure and achieve green low-carbon development. Hailiang turns its eyes on the copper-based material as another important development direction of the company, which is needed in areas such as new energy vehicles, wind power, photovoltaic, nuclear, etc.
In the evening on November 7, Hailiang announced that the it will set up a holding subsidiary in Lanzhou New Area, Gansu Province, and will invest 8.9 billion Yuan in a project of an annual output of 150,000 tons of high-performance copper foil materials (tentative name, hereinafter referred to as “project”), which is divided into three phases and has been passed by the board of the company.
On the premise of ensuring the realization of the development goals of existing products, the project focuses its superior resources on the development of high-performance copper foil products. Once it is put into operation, Hailiang will reach a high production capacity of high performance copper foil of 150,000 tons per year, including 120,000 tons per year for lithium copper foil and 30,000 tons per year for standard copper foil.
With the booming of new energy vehicles, the demand for power batteries increases geometrically and thus brings consequent increasing demand for high-performance lithium copper foil. Hailiang’s investment in lithium copper foil is expected to become an important breakthrough into new energy copper-based materials. With the steady development of the global digital product market, lithium battery has been widely used in energy storage, and the rapid growth of the downstream lithium battery market will naturally promote the demand for lithium copper foil.
GGII has predicted that the global lithium battery market will continue to maintain a medium-high growth rate in the next few years. By 2025, the global shipments of lithium batteries are expected to reach 1,523GWh, and the global demand for lithium copper foil will reach 970,000 tons, with a compound annual growth rate of 33.9% during 2020 to 2025.
Besides, in 5G telecommunication, high-frequency and high-speed PCB, as an important upstream electronic product, will also stimulate the demand for copper foil as that of itself increases. According to Prismark, the annual compound growth rate of global PCB market will be 5.8% during 2020 to 2025. GGII predicts that the shipments of standard copper foil will continue to grow steadily from 2021 to 2025, with a compound growth rate of about 5.9% from 2020 to 2025, and the global demand for standard copper foil will go up to 680,000 tons by 2025.
It is reported that nowadays lithium battery copper foil in China is still 6 to 8μm. BYD Auto, GuoXuan High-Tech co., ltd, Xingheng, Yiwei lithium and other domestic mainstream battery factories are actively bringing in 6μm lithium battery copper foil, following CATL which achieved 6μm lithium battery copper foil switch. On the premise of ensuring the safe use of battery, the thinner 4.5μm copper foil has become the center of domestic mainstream lithium battery copper foil production enterprises to further improve the energy density of high lithium battery.
It is remarkable that Hailiang mainly chooses 6μm or 4.5μm lithium copper foil as its product. Copper foil is an important basic material for the anode of lithium ion battery, whose even small development is crucial to increase the capacity of the battery. With the development of lithium ion battery industry and the increasing requirements of the energy density of lithium battery by end customers, high-performance ultra-thin lithium copper foil will have great market application value and prospect.
Hailiang also claims that the it focuses on the development of global copper foil market, makes full use of its experience in overseas factories, its abilities and the advantages of globalization, further accelerates its detailed research of copper foil market outside, fully demonstrates the feasibility of the project of annual production of 100000 tons of copper foil in Europe and the southeast Asia, and also actively looks for opportunities of cooperation and merger with high-quality copper foil production enterprise.