In late May 2024, copper prices reached an all-time peak after months of gains, approaching 90,000 yuan/ton.
At the same time, a community in Beijing is competing with the domestic "old for new" regular army, and the price of door-to-door recycling of air conditioning cabinets has exceeded the 800 yuan mark.
For more than ten years, whenever the price of copper soars, it is a day for the air conditioning industry to discuss the feasibility of replacing copper with aluminum. But today is different from the past, in today's world competition pattern is changing, copper, as an important raw material for China's new energy vehicles + air conditioning + AI computing power that is widely used and highly dependent on imports, its strategic significance is self-evident.
So today, is it necessary to force aluminum to replace copper as the core raw material of air conditioning?
Copper and aluminum are not just about price
In late May, while the copper price hit a record of nearly 90,000 yuan/ton, the aluminum price also hit a record high, but it just exceeded 21,000 yuan/ton. Compared with the two, there is really a huge gap.
The huge price gap naturally triggered the industry's call and discussion on replacing traditional copper heat exchangers with aluminum heat exchangers. But this time, the sound is not only due to the price gap between the two non-ferrous metals, but has risen to the height of the national development strategy.
The causes of copper price fluctuations are complex, involving multiple factors such as finance and politics. However, the decarbonization and electrification trend triggered by the global energy transition in recent years is a key factor that is destined to continue to increase copper demand. Not only that, but the demand for copper caused by the power demand caused by the upgrade of AI technology is also continuing to increase. Whether it is the manufacturing of new energy vehicles, the low-carbon strategy, or the continuous advancement of AI technology, it is a key area that China is focusing on.
For China, copper has become very important. However, China is a large copper user, and its dependence on foreign resources is very high and its pricing power is insufficient. According to the data, China's refined copper consumption reached 15.22 million tons in 2023, accounting for 56.2% of global copper consumption. However, China accounts for only 8% of the world's copper mineral reserves, and most of its copper resources are dependent on imports. This is at odds with China's current development strategy, which emphasizes "supply chain security".
Compared with copper, although China's local bauxite reserves are also relatively scarce, bauxite production ranks among the top two in the world. Since many of the bauxite mines in Guinea, the main bauxite producing country, are operated by China, China has the pricing power for bauxite worldwide. At the moment, aluminum is in a much better position than copper in terms of supply chain security.
Therefore, the call for saving copper with aluminum and exchanging aluminum for copper is getting louder and louder, which is not only due to the consideration of the huge gap between copper and aluminum prices, but also based on the expectation of China's huge copper consumption and the allocation of national strategic resources.
Aluminum for household appliances is difficult in air conditioning
Various surveys on China's non-ferrous metals clearly show that the upstream and downstream manufacturing of the home appliance industry is still the first in the current field of China's large copper consumption. Copper in the home appliance industry is mainly used in the manufacture of motors, connecting tubes, heat exchangers, fans and other components, and theoretically it is feasible to use aluminum instead of copper for these components, which is also the reason why the home appliance industry is considered to be the most "copper-saving" effect in several industries with a large amount of copper.
In fact, refrigerators in the home appliance industry as a large copper user has basically realized aluminum instead of copper many years ago, according to the "Aluminum Application White Paper" shows, as early as 2007, China's refrigerator condenser and evaporator aluminum utilization rate reached 80%. At present, the use rate of aluminum in refrigerator products of mainstream refrigerator companies exceeds 90%. The refrigeration pipeline is dominated by copper pipes, and the compressor connecting pipes, return pipes, and evaporators are basically made of aluminum, but the capillary pipes and some connections still retain copper materials.
Just as in the process of refrigerant substitution, the refrigerator industry has completed the replacement of R12 with natural working fluid R600a more than 20 years ago, and the air conditioning industry, whether as a large greenhouse gas emitter or as a large copper user, is far behind the refrigerator in the process of promoting the substitution of new materials.
Compared with refrigerators, the "semi-closed" nature of air conditioners and the working principle of the heat pump, the core component, make it destined to be bumpy on the road of environmental protection and material saving.
Taking the average use of 4kg of copper for a single air conditioner, the total output of air conditioners in China in 2023 will be as high as 170 million units, and the air conditioner alone will consume 680,000 tons of copper. If we add the upstream annual output of more than 260 million air conditioning compressors and more than 400 million air conditioning motors, the amount of copper used in the upstream and downstream manufacturing of the air conditioning industry has reached the million ton level. Even if only 80% copper is replaced with aluminum, the "copper-saving" effect of the air conditioning industry is considerable.
For more than 20 years, the application of aluminum in the air conditioning industry has never stopped, up to now, there have been many application results, in summary, the application of aluminum in air conditioning in addition to the price advantage, there are several key advantages.
First, the characteristics of aluminum are more suitable for the strategic path of sustainable development. On the one hand, aluminum is more corrosion-resistant than copper, and the recycling process is simple, and the disposal is pollution-free. Compared to the complex disassembly process of copper tube heat exchangers, the disassembly of all-aluminum heat exchangers is much easier, and remanufactured aluminum alloy is also economical. On the other hand, aluminum materials can realize the lightweight design of air conditioners, the density of pure aluminum is only 1/3 of the copper density, and the weight of air conditioners using aluminum heat exchangers and aluminum wire motor compressors is greatly reduced, which greatly reduces the difficulty of air conditioning installation and improves installation efficiency and safety.
Second, the performance of aluminum heat exchangers continues to be upgraded. On the one hand, the heat exchange performance of aluminum pipes is significantly lower than that of copper pipes, and the anti-anthill corrosion effect of aluminum pipes is obvious. On the other hand, with the iteration of R&D results, the heat exchange efficiency of aluminum products has been greatly improved in the aluminum application technology route represented by microchannel heat exchangers, overcoming the negative impact of low thermal conductivity of aluminum.
Third, the microchannel heat exchanger can greatly reduce the refrigerant charge, which is in line with the national dual carbon strategy and can greatly reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Even because of the reduced charge, it can accelerate the technical transformation and promotion and application of natural working medium refrigerants such as R290, which not only saves copper, but also reduces carbon emissions.
These advantages are still not enough to support the great strides of aluminum in the air conditioning industry, and its application and promotion are still subject to multiple resistances.
The industry calls for policy incentives to "clean up the source"
In fact, according to the industry observation in recent years, the important reasons why the air conditioning industry is hesitant to apply aluminum are technical difficulties and route games, but these are not the most critical factors.
The most critical factor is the voice of the people – the voice of the consumer, the voice of the competitor, and even the voice of the media.
For many years, we have heard air conditioning R&D personnel say again and again: "Of course, we are willing to promote the application of aluminum, but we are afraid that our friends will attack us with rhythm, and we are afraid that the brand's reputation will be hit." ”
Interestingly, almost every person in charge of an air conditioning brand has said such a "rat trap" view. In this era of information explosion, the slightest wind and grass can turn doubts into doubts and then rise to the condemnation of "black-hearted brands", which makes every air conditioning brand dare not take the lead in supplying air conditioners with aluminum heat exchangers in the domestic market. Even if some aluminum wire motors, compressors and some aluminum heat exchanger air conditioners have been exported overseas and applied safely, the upstream and downstream enterprises of the air conditioning industry are still secretive about this, for fear that "aluminum instead of copper" will become the handle of innovation and attack.
The person in charge of R&D of the enterprise bluntly said that some bloggers on video platforms such as Douyin abound in order to dismantle the air conditioner in order to win traffic, and many of them go to "weigh" the air conditioner, and even use the weight to measure whether the product is genuine. The old thinking of the public opinion field cannot keep up with the new path of industrial innovation, which makes air conditioning companies frightened. Rather than taking a huge risk of public opinion to change aluminum, it is easier to pass on the cost of rising copper prices to consumers, which has become the mindset of air conditioning companies. But now that the terminal demand is seriously insufficient, and the market price war is resuming, can the cost of rising raw material prices be transferred?
In fact, every air-conditioning company suffering from high copper prices is looking forward to the introduction of some policies to encourage the application of aluminum in household appliances, hoping to find a "upgrade pedal" that can be trusted by the industry.
The industry calls for policies to help "break through bottlenecks"
Another major factor calling for the introduction of supportive policies is the need to break through the bottleneck of aluminum manufacturing and R&D in air conditioners.
On the one hand, the switch to manufacturing processes reduces the willingness of enterprises. In interviews, both the manufacturer of microchannel heat exchangers and the R&D leaders of air conditioners and compressors expressed similar views. For example, to solve the problem of fast heating and frosting speed of microchannel aluminum heat exchanger, it is necessary to update the structural layout of the heat exchanger, which indirectly affects the manufacturing cost; For example, in order to reduce the pitting corrosion and electrochemical corrosion of aluminum tubes, the production line should be adjusted, the heat exchanger production line of copper and aluminum should be divided, and the aluminum processing equipment should be replaced at the same time to minimize impurities; For example, the amount of copper used in the current air-conditioning inverter compressor is much smaller than that of fixed-speed models, which means that the inverter that accounts for the vast majority of the copper proportion in the current Chinese-made rotor air-conditioning compressor basically has no intention of switching aluminum wire motors.
On the other hand, the aluminum industry needs to be upgraded. Due to the high welding difficulty of aluminum pipelines, the corrosion resistance is poor compared with copper due to impurities, and the energy consumption of electrolytic aluminum in the processing process is too large. In fact, the entire aluminum processing industry chain needs to be upgraded, including reducing the proportion of thermal power use, improving the purity of aluminum ingots, and improving the level of welding equipment related to aluminum pipes.
Comprehensive analysis, the challenge of applying aluminum to the air conditioning industry is not unsolvable, but it not only requires the continuous improvement of technology, but also the formulation of unified industry standards, and the strong policy promotion of the government.
At this juncture, when copper prices are about to enter the 100,000 yuan per ton mark, it is time to release relevant policies for the application of aluminum in air conditioning.
(This article was first published in "Electrical Appliances" magazine, the author is Su Liang)