Energy storage+trade in two wheel drive, China's lead ingot demand is expected to grow by 5% -10% by 2025
Under the dual benefits of the outbreak of the new energy storage industry and the implementation of the battery trade in policy, the demand for lead ingots in China has entered a structural growth cycle. Recently, the China Nonferrous Metals Industry Association and several industry research institutions jointly released forecast data showing that the total demand for lead ingots in China will reach around 5.4 million tons by 2025, an increase of 5% -10% compared to 2024. Among them, the replacement demand for energy storage batteries and traditional lead-acid batteries will become the core growth engine, driving the industry to accelerate its transformation from "scale expansion" to "structural upgrading".
1、 The demand for energy storage has exploded, and lead carbon batteries have opened up new growth opportunities
The large-scale development of the energy storage industry has become a "new engine" for the growth of lead ingot demand. With the promotion of the "dual carbon" strategy, industrial and commercial energy storage, artificial intelligence computing center energy storage, and distributed energy storage projects are accelerating their implementation. Lead carbon batteries, with their advantages of high safety, controllable cost, and long cycle life, continue to increase their market penetration rate, and are expected to exceed 15% in the electrochemical energy storage market by 2025. Although the proportion of lead in this type of battery is slightly lower than that of traditional lead-acid batteries, based on the consumption of 12000 tons of lead ingots by 1GWh lead carbon batteries, the demand for lead ingots in the domestic energy storage field will increase by more than 50000 tons by 2025, contributing 0.37% of the global lead consumption growth rate.
High purity lead ingots have become the core demand product in the energy storage field. New energy storage has strict requirements for battery stability and durability, which has led to a surge in demand for 5N grade (purity 99.999%) high-purity lead ingots. These products can effectively improve battery cycle efficiency and reduce self discharge rate, and have been applied in large-scale energy storage power plants on the grid side, accounting for 30% of the total. Data shows that the domestic production of high-purity lead ingots is expected to exceed 850000 tons by 2025, of which more than 40% will be used for energy storage battery production. Leading smelting enterprises are increasing their production lines for high-purity lead to seize the high-end market share.
2、 The policy of exchanging old for new is being implemented, and the demand in traditional fields is steadily increasing
The comprehensive implementation of the battery trade in policy has activated the lead-acid battery stock replacement market. Since 2024, many regions have introduced subsidy policies for the exchange of old lead-acid batteries for electric bicycles and cars, encouraging consumers to replace compliant batteries and driving a 12% year-on-year increase in demand for updating existing batteries. As the core raw material of lead-acid batteries, lead ingots maintain a rigid growth in demand in this field, with electric bicycle battery replacement demand accounting for 78% and automotive start stop battery demand growing at an annual rate of 2% -3%.
Under policy guidance, the recycling system is improved to further ensure a virtuous cycle of supply and demand for recycled lead ingots. At present, the standardized recycling rate of waste lead-acid batteries in China has exceeded 95%, and the production of recycled lead is expected to reach 6.8 million tons by 2025, accounting for 58% of the total refined lead production for the first time. The trade in policy not only drives the demand for new lead-acid battery production, but also reduces the industry's dependence on primary lead through resource recycling, forming a closed-loop industrial chain of "recycling smelting remanufacturing", supporting the continuous release of lead ingot demand.
3、 The supply and demand pattern continues to optimize, with both industry concentration and product added value increasing
The growth in demand drives the upgrading of the industry's supply side structure. At present, the domestic lead ingot industry presents the characteristics of "regional clustering and enterprise scale". The production capacity of the three major industrial clusters in Henan, Anhui, and Jiangsu accounts for over 65%. Leading enterprises such as Yuguang Gold Lead and Camel Co., Ltd. jointly account for more than 60% of the national production capacity, and the industry CR10 has increased to 68%. These enterprises have increased the popularization rate of advanced processes such as oxygen enriched side blowing smelting and short process metallurgy to over 60% through technological iteration, and the vertical yield has exceeded 94%, which not only ensures production capacity supply but also reduces unit energy consumption.
The changes in market demand structure drive the increase of product added value. In addition to high-purity lead ingots required in the energy storage field, the demand for special lead ingots in areas such as nuclear power protection and high-end electronic packaging is also growing, driving the proportion of high value-added products in the industry to increase from 18% in 2020 to 27% in 2025. At the same time, the EU battery regulations require a mandatory proportion of recycled lead content of 25%, forcing domestic enterprises to strengthen the research and development of recycled lead technology. By 2025, the proportion of recycled lead ingots in exported products is expected to exceed 45%, mainly flowing to emerging markets such as Southeast Asia and the Middle East.
4、 Future trend: High quality development of the industry under dual wheel drive
Looking ahead to 2025, the lead ingot market will continue to benefit from the expansion of the energy storage industry and the deepening of the trade in policy, with strong demand growth momentum. Industry experts say that with the continuous iteration of lead carbon battery technology and further improvement of battery recycling systems, the demand for lead ingots will become more sustainable, and it is expected that the industry's compound growth rate will remain at 4% -5% from 2026 to 2030.
On the supply side, primary lead is constrained by environmental restrictions and declining resource grades, resulting in limited new production capacity. Recycled lead will become the main source of supply, and the proportion of recycled lead is expected to exceed 55% by 2030. At the same time, price fluctuations will tend to stabilize, and the domestic lead ingot price center is expected to remain in the range of 16500-18000 yuan/ton by 2025. The industry will gradually shift from "price competition" to "technology competition" and "green competition", providing more stable and efficient raw material support for new energy, transportation and other fields.
