Zhu Gongshan, Chairman of the Global Green Energy Industry Council and Chairman of GCL Group, stated at the Entrepreneurs Summit Forum hosted by the China Nonferrous Metals Industry Association on March 31 that, in the context of carbon emission peak and carbon neutral goals, silicon and lithium materials, as two strategic emerging materials, are playing an important driving role in energy transformation and revolution.
Zhu Gongshan believes that silicon material is the “new coal” of the future, and lithium material is the “new oil and gas” of the future. The “two main lines” and “two alternatives” of green and low-carbon development are necessary options and fundamental trends towards a zero carbon future. In this critical period, GCL Group hopes to drive the application revolution with the technological revolution and material revolution, and make contributions to the zero carbon future.
The essence of energy transformation is to replace carbon energy with silicon energy. At the SNEC Conference held in June 2021, Zhu first proposed that carbon neutrality is promoting a clean substitution revolution in which “silicon based energy” replaces “carbon based energy”. The essence of energy transformation is to replace traditional carbon energy with clean energy represented by silicon energy. In sharp contrast to the gradual depletion of carbon energy, the effective utilization of silicon energy, or silicon materials, has only just begun, and is almost inexhaustible. As the locomotive of solar and semiconductor industries, silicon materials are an important foundation for strategic emerging industries such as new energy, new materials, and electronic information.
In the solar field, the market share of crystalline silicon materials has reached over 90%, and silicon solar cells account for over 98% of the total output of solar cells in the world, with poly crystalline silicon cells accounting for about 55%, mono crystalline silicon cells accounting for about 36%, and 7% of other silicon materials cells. Currently, the output of each link of China’s solar industry chain has exceeded 70% of the global market share, ranking first in the world for many consecutive years. In addition to policy guidance, technological innovation, and other factors, this achievement is also closely related to the background that China is the world’s largest producer, consumer, and exporter of industrial silicon. By the end of 2022, the global total industrial silicon production capacity was 6.31 million tons, of which 5.71 million tons were from China, accounting for 90.5%, said Zhu.
The current comprehensive energy consumption of GCL FBR granular silicon has reached only 23% of that of traditional processes, with the power consumption per kilogram falling below 14 kilowatt hours, which can drive the entire process energy consumption of the solar system to be reduced by 70-80% or even more. After being applied to the system for power generation, it only takes a little over half a year to recover the energy consumed in the production process. Solar modules can operate stably for more than 25 years, some even up to 30 years. In other words, relying on silicon energy, solar energy has a total life cycle power output of about 65 times the input, making it the cornerstone of the most economical, most affordable, and lowest carbon new energy material.
In addition, GCL’s silane specialty gas scale ranks first in the world, and the preparation process, environmental protection level, and automation level of nano silicon powder are also currently the first in the world, providing a continuous upstream guarantee for the alternative development of advanced silicon energy such as granular silicon, stated by Zhu.
In the past decade, the global cost of solar power generation has decreased by more than 90%, and the lowest bid price for solar power generation in the world is only about USD 1 cent per kilowatt hour. According to the model forecast of the Global Green Energy Industry Council, in the next five years, solar power generation will account for more than 65% of the global power increment, officially surpassing coal power as the main force of new power systems.
At the same time, with the improvement and decrease of technology and cost, “silicon+solar+hydrogen” will become the mainstream mode of deep decarbonization. The core products in the industrialization era are mainly carbon based, while the core products in the electrification era are mainly silicon. Silicon energy will change the world from the source and become the heart of energy.
Last year, China’s lithium ion battery industry stabilized at the trillion-level track, with a significant increase in the number of power battery vehicles and the cumulative installed capacity of energy storage lithium cells. The four major materials and technologies, including positive electrode materials, negative electrode materials, diaphragms, and electrolyte, have made significant progress, while also driving the corresponding trillion-level market for lithium battery main materials.
Since this year, although the price of lithium has declined, from the perspective of resource endowment, China’s lithium resources and high-quality lithium resources are scarce, and the development technology and progress of lithium resources do not match the growth rate of demand. The supply and demand of lithium materials and electric vehicles, wind energy storage, communication energy storage, and residential energy storage will still be in an unbalanced state for a certain period of time. In terms of power cells, whether it’s mainstream lithium iron phosphate, lithium ternary, or other technical routes, it’s a balance between core cost, safety requirements, and energy density.
Specifically, in lithium materials, GCL focuses on the development of upstream lithium mines and salt lake resources, as well as the development of positive electrode materials and battery grade lithium phosphate, connecting the construction of mobile energy infrastructure such as PACK packages, energy storage, and power conversion stations, forming a business closed-loop and building a lithium ecosystem, said Zhu.
GCL also owns the PHY one-step physical dry process lithium iron phosphate cathode material process with fully independent intellectual property rights, which is currently the world’s most advanced zero carbon battery material technology. Compared with traditional wet process, the process has been reduced from 11 to 4, reducing production costs, investment costs, and energy consumption by more than 40%, with zero emissions throughout.
Currently, GCL has invested and constructed 360,000 tons and 300,000 tons of lithium iron phosphate cathode material projects in Renshou and Leshan of Sichuan Province, respectively. Relying on the new generation sulfuric acid carbonization process technology, GCL has invested and constructed 30,000 tons of battery grade lithium carbonate projects in Meishan, forming a vertical integrated supporting system.
