Crack the power battery recycling problem

The power battery capacity decays, can not support the mileage, but a new battery is expensive. Recently, the recycling of waste batteries of new energy vehicles has received widespread attention and has become an urgent topic to be solved in the development of China's new energy automobile industry.

The recycling of waste batteries of new energy vehicles seems to be a terminal problem, but it is actually a necessary condition for the sustainable development of the industry. At present, China's new energy vehicles account for more than 11% of automobile sales. With the rapid growth of new energy vehicle ownership, China will usher in the first wave of new energy vehicle power battery retirement tide, and a large number of new energy vehicle power batteries will enter the scrapping link. Properly doing a good job in recycling can not only promote the recycling of battery metal raw materials, reduce dependence on source mineral resources and environmental pollution, and help achieve the goal of double carbon; it will also help to better stimulate consumption willingness, promote automobile consumption, cultivate and expand the development of the power battery recycling industry, and achieve a win-win situation of economic and social benefits.

In recent years, in order to cope with the problem of power battery recycling, relevant departments have successively issued a series of policy measures. At the beginning of July this year, the National Development and Reform Commission and others jointly issued a notice proposing to improve the traceability management system for the recycling and utilization of new energy vehicle power batteries; in August this year, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology and other five departments jointly issued the "Administrative Measures for the Echelon Utilization of New Energy Vehicle Power Batteries" to accelerate the construction of the power battery recycling system. By the end of September, 171 new energy vehicle production and comprehensive utilization enterprises had set up 9985 recycling service outlets across the country. It should also be noted that due to the high cost of processing, the difficulty of profitability, and the lack of strict control, in addition to the formal channels, there are still many decommissioned power batteries flowing into small workshops, bringing safety and environmental protection risks, and the governance of this phenomenon requires the relevant departments to intervene in a timely manner and the industry enterprises to join hands.

To regulate the competitive market, the "visible hand" must act actively. To solve the problem of recycling waste power batteries, it is imperative to standardize the flow channel. It is necessary to manage the "increment" well, so that the flow direction of the new power battery can be followed, but also to constrain the "stock", to restrict the barbaric growth of informal recycling enterprises with compulsory measures, and to purify the battery recycling market. At the same time, if it can be collected, it should be able to use it, and the relevant requirements of the whole process of production, use and recycling of cascade utilization products should be further clarified, and the "experts" of enterprises that can cultivate and support the cascade and recycling of waste batteries should be vigorously cultivated and supported, and the decommissioned batteries should be guided to be recycled in an orderly manner.

To improve the efficiency of recycling, the "invisible hand" must be jointly exerted by multiple subjects. The power battery recycling industry involves new energy vehicles and battery manufacturers, terminal utilization enterprises, with wide coverage and long industrial chain. To develop the battery recycling industry, it is also necessary for upstream and downstream enterprises to "multi-hand bullets". It should be noted that whether it is to inhibit the survival and development of the gray industrial chain, or to implement the traceability management of the whole life cycle of power batteries, it is necessary for the relevant enterprises of the industrial chain to take joint actions to maintain a good industry ecology, cultivate the cascade utilization market, and effectively open up the blue ocean of battery recycling.

Multi-party intervention is for the long-term development of the new energy automobile industry to "leave a foot behind". In the context of achieving the goal of carbon neutrality, China's new energy automobile industry will surely usher in greater development, and the recycling of power batteries must also enter the right track of standardized development. Relevant departments should accelerate the recycling of power batteries from the aspects of laws and regulations, technical standards, etc., to help the new energy automobile industry to be stable and far-reaching; for related enterprises, it may wish to take a longer-term view, accelerate the layout of related industries, lay more "seeds" for their own sustainable development and cultivate new growth points, and take the lead in the new round of competition in the future.

People's Daily ( 08 December 2021 05 edition)