Recently, the industry monitoring report released by the China Nonferrous Metals Industry Association showed that benefiting from the explosive demand in emerging fields such as new energy storage and nuclear power construction, the Chinese lead plate market is entering a new stage of development with both scale and quality improvement. Data shows that the domestic lead plate market size has reached 9.86 billion yuan in 2023, with an average annual compound growth rate of around 5.8%. It is expected to officially break through the 11.2 billion yuan mark by 2025, and production is expected to climb to 425000 tons, an increase of 12.3% compared to 2022. The demand contribution from the new energy and nuclear power fields will exceed 35%, becoming the core engine driving market growth.
The demand growth in the field of new energy can be regarded as an accelerator in the market. Against the backdrop of rapid expansion in the energy storage industry, the industrial application of new energy storage technologies such as lead carbon batteries and sodium ion batteries continues to increase the demand for high-performance lead sheet materials, with an annual growth rate of 14.6% in this field. As the core electrode substrate of energy storage batteries, lead plates have high purity and corrosion resistance, which can improve the battery's cycle life and stability. They are widely used in industrial and commercial energy storage power stations, communication base station backup power supplies, and other scenarios. At the same time, the development of the new energy vehicle industry has also driven the demand for supporting materials. Lead plates are used for radiation protection and structural weighting in battery areas, ensuring the safety of vehicle operation and becoming an important supporting material in the field of automobile manufacturing. With the promotion of the "dual carbon" strategy, distributed energy storage projects are accelerating their implementation, and it is expected that the demand for lead plates in the new energy sector will exceed 150000 tons by 2025.
The steady expansion of the nuclear power sector provides stable demand support for the market. In recent years, China's nuclear power construction has entered a period of large-scale development, with expansion projects of nuclear power plants such as Yangjiang and Ningde being promoted one after another. In addition, with the demonstration and application of new nuclear power technologies, the demand for radiation shielding materials continues to increase. Lead plates are widely used in key areas such as observation windows in nuclear power plant control rooms, storage containers for nuclear waste, and reactor protective walls due to their excellent radiation absorption capabilities. High purity lead plates (purity ≥ 99.99%) have become a core demand product. Data shows that the demand for lead plates in the domestic nuclear power sector is expected to increase by 8.3% year-on-year in 2025. Among them, high-end products such as "lead polyethylene steel" composite structure lead plates have increased their usage rate in new nuclear power projects to over 60% due to higher shielding efficiency. At the policy level, the "14th Five Year Plan" for the development of the new materials industry clearly supports the application of functional metal materials in the nuclear industry, providing strong strategic support for the lead plate industry.
The optimization of market structure and industrial upgrading further support the expansion of scale. At present, the lead plate industry in China presents a regional pattern of "central agglomeration and southwest rise", with industrial clusters formed in Henan, Hunan, Yunnan and other places. The top ten enterprises account for 68.4% of the national output, and the industry concentration continues to increase. The tightening of environmental policies has forced industry transformation, with over 60% of enterprises above designated size completing clean production transformation. The comprehensive energy consumption per unit output value has decreased by 8.4%, and the recycling rate of waste lead has increased to 93.5%, forming a green circular industry chain. In terms of technology, the popularization of continuous casting and automated rolling processes has significantly enhanced product consistency, and the proportion of high value-added products has increased from 18% in 2020 to 27% in 2024, effectively meeting the high-end demand in fields such as new energy and nuclear power.
In terms of import and export markets, China's lead plates are still mainly exported in a net manner, with an export volume of 68000 tons in 2023, a year-on-year increase of 9.7%, mainly targeting infrastructure and energy projects in Southeast Asia, the Middle East and other regions. However, high-end products such as medical grade ultra-thin lead plates still rely partially on imports, accounting for about 35%, and there is ample room for domestic substitution. Industry insiders indicate that in the future, the industry will focus on intelligent production, research and development of composite materials, and other directions. It is expected that the coverage rate of automated production lines will increase to over 75% by 2025, further consolidating China's dominant position in the global lead plate market.
With the continuous iteration of new energy storage technology and the orderly promotion of nuclear power projects, the demand for lead plates in the Chinese market will continue to be released. While the scale steadily grows, the product structure will accelerate towards high-end and green development, and the high-quality development pattern of the industry will gradually take shape.
