On July 25, the official Weibo account of AVIC Lithium Technology Co., Ltd. announced that the company had signed a strategic cooperation agreement with Han’s Laser Technology Industry Group Co., Ltd. Liu Jingyu, chairman of AVIC Lithium Battery, and Gao Yunfeng, chairman of Han's Laser, signed the contract on site. This is another major breakthrough Han's Laser has achieved in the lithium battery market after receiving a 1 billion yuan order from CATL, the leading lithium battery company, in June!
AVIC Lithium Battery: ranking fourth in terms of installed capacity of power batteries
AVIC Lithium Battery is one of the pioneers in the field of power batteries in my country. As early as 2007, when the domestic new energy vehicle industry was still in the gestation stage, "Sky Energy (Luoyang) Co., Ltd.", the predecessor of AVIC Lithium Battery, was established in Luoyang. In September 2009, with the joint investment of China Aviation Industry Corporation and China Air-to-Air Missile Research Institute, Sky Energy officially changed its name to AVIC Lithium Battery, and took the lithium iron phosphate battery route as its main research and development direction.
According to statistics from the China Automotive Power Battery Industry Innovation Alliance, in the domestic installed capacity ranking of power battery companies in the first half of 2021, CATL ranked first with 25.76GWh, BYD and LG New Energy ranked second and third with 7.65GWh and 4.72GWh respectively, and AVIC Lithium ranked fourth in the installed capacity ranking with 3.63GWh (third domestically produced).
Currently, AVIC Lithium Battery is embarking on IPO preparations, and initially plans to conduct an IPO in 2022.
Han's Laser: It has been deploying lithium batteries for many years and its revenue has grown rapidly
Han's Laser has been in the new energy market for a long time. It achieved revenue of 110 million yuan as early as 2015 and has grown year by year since then. In 2016, Han's Laser integrated upstream and downstream resources and increased its supply capacity of lithium battery front-end production equipment through new establishments and mergers and acquisitions, ultimately achieving sales of approximately 300 million yuan.
In April 2017, Han's Laser established a new energy equipment division, and through strategic holdings of Bonnatus, Han's Dingxin, and Han's Zhanyu, it accelerated its business expansion of liquid injection machines, mixers, coating machines and other products. In addition, Han's Laser has increased its R&D investment in the entire line business, and has developed and completed dual-core parallel battery cell automation projects, module automatic assembly side seam high-speed laser welding projects, square battery cell module and PACK welding and assembly projects, which have been recognized by key customers in the industry. It has also completed the delivery of multiple complete line equipment, and has the ability to supply overall equipment from cells to modules to PACK. In the end, the new energy business achieved operating income of 547 million yuan, a year-on-year increase of 82%.
In 2018, Han's Laser has been able to provide complete line intelligent equipment delivery for battery cell and module production through the "integrated vertical and horizontal" strategy, and has significantly improved the production efficiency of battery cells and modules by increasing investment in research and development. This year, Han's Laser's new energy business achieved a contract value of 1.499 billion (mainly CATL), a year-on-year increase of 77.6%, which laid the foundation for a substantial growth in new energy business revenue in 2019. It was confirmed by the audit that the operating income of Han's Laser's new energy business in 2018 was 641 million yuan, a year-on-year increase of 17.22%.
In 2019, Han’s Laser’s new energy business achieved operating income of 1.109 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 72.95%. As of the end of 2019, Han's Laser ranks at the forefront of the industry in terms of market share and technical level in battery cell equipment, modules and PACK segments, and is able to provide complete line intelligent equipment delivery for battery cell and module production. Among them, the industry's first automatic module assembly line with a 24PPM cell processing capacity developed and produced by Han's Laser was successfully delivered, with a single production line achieving sales of more than 40 million yuan. This line integrates the application of intelligent gluing and detection systems, plasma cleaning and detection systems, busbar overall automatic loading and assembly systems, collection wire bonding equipment and automatic weighing systems. It is 90 meters long, 10 meters wide, and has more than 30 process requirements.
Han's Laser's new energy business revenue declined in 2020, ending up with only 271 million yuan. But in the second half of 2020, the cooperation between Han's Laser and CATL reached an unprecedented height: orders for the year exceeded 1.2 billion yuan! This indicates that new energy business revenue will explode again in 2021.
In the first half of 2021, Han’s Laser once again received an order of 1 billion yuan from CATL. This means that within one year, Han’s Laser received an order amount of 2.2 billion yuan from CATL! At the beginning of the second half of the year, Han's Laser once again won a major customer in the lithium battery industry - AVIC Lithium Battery. Although the two parties have not officially signed a purchase contract, it is foreseeable that Han's Laser's new energy business will once again achieve rapid development.
The laser lithium battery market has great potential
Before the emergence of laser technology, the battery industry used traditional machinery for processing. Compared with traditional mechanical processing, laser processing has many advantages and is gradually recognized by lithium battery manufacturers. It is widely used in metal foil slitting, metal foil cutting, isolation film cutting, and welding of tabs, cell shells, sealing nails, soft connections, explosion-proof valves, battery modules, etc.
The lithium battery processing process has high requirements on accuracy, controllability and the quality of the processing machines. During use, the die-cutting knife will inevitably wear out, causing dust to fall off and burrs to form, which may cause dangerous problems such as battery overheating, short circuit, explosion, etc. In order to avoid danger, it is more suitable to use laser for processing. Compared with traditional mechanical processing, the advantages of laser processing include no tool wear, flexible cutting shapes, edge quality control, higher accuracy and lower operating costs.
Compared with traditional die-cutting methods, laser cutting has the advantages of no tool wear, flexible cutting shape, edge quality control, higher accuracy and lower operating costs. It is conducive to reducing manufacturing costs, improving production efficiency, and greatly shortening the die-cutting cycle of new products.
The laser welding system is an important part of the power battery production line. The principle is an efficient and precise welding method that uses high-energy-density laser beams as heat sources. Compared with traditional welding, laser welding has many advantages, including deep penetration, fast speed, small deformation, low requirements on the welding environment, high power density, not affected by magnetic fields, not limited to conductive materials, does not require vacuum working conditions and does not produce X-rays during the welding process. Therefore, it is widely used in high-end precision manufacturing, especially in the new energy vehicle and power battery industries.
At present, the new energy industry is developing rapidly, which has driven the simultaneous growth of the lithium battery industry and the lithium battery equipment manufacturing industry. This has provided good soil for the large-scale application of laser technology in the lithium battery market. Its development prospects can be seen from the substantial expansion of production and increased procurement of the lithium battery leader CATL. It is foreseeable that as the new energy market continues to develop, quality requirements gradually increase, and laser technology continues to improve, more laser technologies can be applied in the lithium battery market in the future, and more laser companies can benefit from the lithium battery industry.
ANNA