Power battery recycling, management to be improved

China will further improve the recycling and management mechanism of power batteries and accelerate the release of urgently needed national standards for echelon utilization requirements, product markings, and discharge regulations, according to a statement by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology on Tuesday.

The ministry also vowed to support tackling of core technological barriers of echelon utilization, which means stages of rational utilization of the remaining capacity of decommissioned power batteries, and ensuring safety. The ministry also said it will offer support to problem diagnosis and monitoring, research fast check and evaluation of remaining capacity of decommissioned power batteries, evaluation systems and establishment of technical specifications for the echelon utilization of decommissioned power batteries.

"The shortage of lithium materials, a major material for power batteries, as well as the surging need of new energy vehicles buoyed by China's strong green commitment, made power battery recycling more prominent nowadays," said Lin Boqiang, head of the China Institute for Studies in Energy Policy at Xiamen University.

Power batteries, commonly used in new energy vehicles, are seeing rapid development in China. In the first six months, power battery production in China reached 74.7 gigawatt-hours, up 217.5 percent year-on-year. Total capacity of power batteries sold during the period amounted to 58.2 GWh, a rise of 173.6 percent year-on-year, and installed capacity was 52.5 GWh, an increase of 200.3 percent year-on-year, according to the China Electric-Vehicle Battery Industry Innovation Alliance.

The surge in NEV sales, buoyed by China's green commitment, is an important reason behind the booming development of power batteries, Lin said.

Both production and sales of new energy vehicles reached 1.37 million units last year, up 7.5 percent and 10.9 percent year-on-year respectively, making China the world's largest NEV producer and seller for six consecutive years, according to the ministry.

To date, China's car parc of NEVs accounted for about half of the world's total, MIIT said.