Bloombergnef: Supply chain issues restrict the growth of the US energy storage industry

An analyst at Bloombergnef (BNEF) said that the approximate factors that affect the supply chain system that affect the energy storage industry have developed to the stage of "vital" in this industry.

At the RE+2022 Industry Conference Seminar held in California, the BNEF energy storage analyst Helen Kou said that the supply chain issue may mean that the US expected development will be reduced by 29%.

Kou said that the forthcoming company's annual battery pricing report shows that these constraints are also the main driving force on the price chain of this year's value chain than the 2021 "significantly rising". As customers demand for battery energy storage continues to increase, the price of significantly rising prices is emerging.

When Kou introduced some of the key discovery of BNEF, "I think this industry is in this very critical period. The demand is actually clear. Many public institutions hope to put a battery in their power grids for stability and can be stable. Regeneration [Energy Power Generation], but in fact, the supply is quite uncertain. "

An analyst at Bloombergnef (BNEF) said that the approximate factors that affect the supply chain system that affect the energy storage industry have developed to the stage of "vital" in this industry.

At the RE+2022 Industry Conference Seminar held in California, the BNEF energy storage analyst Helen Kou said that the supply chain issue may mean that the US expected development will be reduced by 29%.

Kou said that the forthcoming company's annual battery pricing report shows that these constraints are also the main driving force on the price chain of this year's value chain than the 2021 "significantly rising". As customers demand for battery energy storage continues to increase, the price of significantly rising prices is emerging.

When Kou introduced some of the key discovery of BNEF, "I think this industry is in this very critical period. The demand is actually clear. Many public institutions hope to put a battery in their power grids for stability and can be stable. Regeneration [Energy Power Generation], but in fact, the supply is quite uncertain. "Bloombergnef Energy Storage Analyst Helen Kou spoke at the RE+ 2022 Ibesa seminar

The reasons for these issues are found to be checked, including the rise in the price of logistics bottlenecks and lithium battery raw materials brought by COVID-19.

KOU pointed out that the components and systems of some battery energy storage projects were shipped in April 2020, that is, a few weeks before the epidemic, but stayed in the container queue in ports such as Port Los Angeles. At the peak of the epidemic, an average of 84 ships waiting for unloading per day.

Due to congestion and logistics restrictions, these components and systems "still have not entered the power grid today in 2022." However, BNEF believes that although the logistics situation is still full of challenges for a period of time, there have been some signs of mildness.

In the long run, the fluctuation of the price of raw materials is still a long -term problem. At least at the end of this century, it will be the case before the operation of more lithium mineral capacity.

Cost, "quite controversial issues"

KOU said that in the past few months, all components of each subsystem of a complete energy storage system have gone through the increase in costs caused by inflation and rising labor costs, but the rise in battery costs is the most significant.

"This is really important because the battery is the largest cost component of the energy storage system", and the cathode is the highest cost part in the battery.

The soaring prices of lithium carbonate, cobalt sulfate and nickel sulfate in the key positive materials have affected the entire industry. Although the supply restrictions of the latter two have been relieved, the lithium iron phosphate (LFP) battery has become more and more popular in the field of electric vehicles and the field of battery storage. Keep a high position. "

Company analysts are often asked about a "quite controversial question", that is, whether battery manufacturers exaggerate the cost, higher than the level of the increase in commodity prices.

"After a lot of analysis, our conclusion is that this is not the case."

Obviously there are two main reasons. First of all, the price difference is very different, depending on the scale of the manufacturer and the company's strategy. Kou pointed out that Korean manufacturers SK Innovation, LG Energy Solution and Samsung's cathode costs recorded in their quarter documents are huge. Another reason is that the so -called "cathode production premium" will decline over time.

According to the spot market price of the materials used in LFP and nickel manganese cobalt (NMC), BNEF can calculate the value of these premiums increased by the manufacturer.

In 2020, the average premium of cathode production was about 2.8 times, which means that the cost of manufacturing per kilogram of LFP cathode materials was about $ 10,000, but the price per kilogram at the time was about $ 28,000. As of July 2022, the premium had fallen to 1.3 times.

The revision of BNEF's prediction is basically the same as the prediction of Wood Mackenzie Power & Renewables. The latter recently said that in 2022, the deployment volume of the United States may be 30%compared with previous expectations. In addition to the supply chain challenge for energy storage, Wood Mackenzie also pointed out that the prospects for imposing tariffs on imported solar components are full of uncertainty, resulting in some investment decisions in companies in the field of solar-energy storage.

However, Wood Mackenzie believes that despite these challenges, the total development of this year may reach 13.5GWh and may exceed 50GWh after this decade. As Bloombergnef's Helen Kou recognized, it is obvious that even if there is a challenge for logistics and price dynamics, the demand for energy storage still exists.