① After entering the sodium battery market for two years, Pritt received an order for 1.5 GWh sodium batteries, which were delivered in two and a half years. ② Judging from the company's layout, there is currently a 1.3 GWh sodium battery production capacity, and the production capacity of sodium/lithium-ion batteries under construction is 10 GWh, which is expected to be put into operation within the year.
Financial Services Association, May 12 (Reporter Zeng Chuchu) After entering the sodium battery market for two years, Pritt received an order for 1.5 GWh sodium batteries, which were delivered in two and a half years. Judging from the company's layout, there is currently a 1.3 GWh sodium battery production capacity, and the production capacity of sodium/lithium-ion batteries under construction is 10 GWh, which is expected to be put into operation within the year.
Pritt announced this evening that its holding subsidiary Jiangsu Highstar Power Co., Ltd. (“Haishida”) recently signed a purchase and sales framework contract with Shanghai Hirano Environmental Technology Co., Ltd. (“Shanghai Pingye”) for sodium battery products with a total volume of not less than 1.5 GWh, which will be delivered in batches from May 2024 to December 2026. The products will eventually be mainly used in the world's famous electric forklifts, low-speed vehicles, and functional vehicles.
Earlier in March, Pritt announced on the company's WeChat account that the new sodium-ion battery cell developed by Highstar and the sodium-ion battery pack developed by Shanghai Hirano Power are undergoing application verification tests at Komatsu Seisakusho Co., Ltd. (“Komatsu Seisakusho” for short) in the 1.5-ton concept electric forklift project. Komatsu Seisakusho operates all over the world, including construction machinery and mining machinery, small urban machinery, forestry equipment, and industrial machinery.
Pritt said in the announcement that the purchasing and sales framework contract signed by Haishida and Shanghai Hirano indicates that the company's sodium-ion batteries have entered the stage of mass production and sales, and that the sodium-ion battery industry will gradually enter an era of large-scale application.
Regarding the market space for sodium batteries, Pritt said in the announcement that due to their advantages of abundant resources, high safety, good low temperature performance, and obvious cost advantages, sodium-ion batteries will be the first to replace lead-acid batteries in the market share, achieve lead-free low-speed electric vehicles and energy storage, and are expected to become an important complement to lithium battery systems in places where household energy storage, industrial and commercial energy storage are cost sensitive and have high safety requirements.
In terms of sodium battery production capacity, according to the company's annual report, by the end of 2023, the company had a sodium/lithium-ion battery co-linear production capacity of 1.3 GWh/year, and a total battery production capacity of 10 GWh/year. It is compatible with the production capacity of sodium/lithium ion batteries and has good flexible production capacity. Among them, the Qidong base will be put into operation in the second quarter of this year, and the Zhuhai base will be put into operation in the third quarter of this year.
In terms of battery performance, the company stated at the performance briefing held in May that the energy density and cycle times of the company's sodium-ion batteries are gradually approaching those of lithium-ion batteries. The layered oxide is a sodium ion cell with a positive cycle rate of at least 70%; polyanionic batteries have a capacity retention rate of at least 70% for 6,000 cycles.
According to reports, Pritt's revenue from the modified plastics industry and the new energy battery industry in 2023 was 76.58% and 23.42% respectively. Among them, NEV battery revenue mainly comes from lithium iron phosphate batteries and nickel batteries. Sodium batteries have not yet been included in the revenue products, and Highstar is an important player in the company's new energy business segment.
Pritt's layout for sodium batteries began to enter during a period of high lithium prices in 2022. In 2022, Pritt spent 1.14 billion yuan to complete the 79.7883% equity settlement of Haishida Power, and increased its capital by 800 million yuan in 2023.
In January of last year, Pritt announced that it is cooperating with Liyang Zhongkehai Sodium Technology Co., Ltd. on “sodium-ion battery product development and marketing”. In May of last year, Pritt also decided to “spend 10 billion dollars” to build a 30 GWh sodium-ion and lithium-ion battery and system production base project in the Liuyang Economic Development Zone. According to the announcement, the project is planned to be built in three phases. The first phase will invest about 3 billion yuan to build a 12 GWh square battery project; the second phase will invest about 3 billion yuan to build a 6 GWh cylindrical battery project, and the third phase will invest about 4.2 billion yuan to build a 12 GWh square battery project.