Lithium iron phosphate batteries will become the mainstream energy storage for communication base stations

With the advent of the 4G era worldwide, a new round of telecommunications investment has also arrived. Lithium batteries are expected to take the lead in the field of communication backup power supply with their outstanding performance advantages and increasingly improved cost-effectiveness.

The 4G era and the trend of miniaturization and integration of base stations have put forward higher requirements on the performance of communication backup power supplies (environmental adaptability, energy density, etc.), which will become the main driving force for the lithium-ionization of backup power supplies.

It is expected that the demand for communication lithium batteries will continue to grow rapidly in the next three years, reaching a market size of 4 billion yuan by 2016. The main reasons are:

1. The price of lithium iron phosphate communication lithium batteries has dropped to about 1.8 yuan/WH, gradually approaching the 0.6 yuan/WH of aluminum acid communication batteries . In terms of the number of cycles, lithium iron phosphate batteries can reach more than 2,000 times, while aluminum acid batteries can only be about 300 times. The cost of a single cycle is already as low as that of aluminum acid batteries;

2. Lithium batteries have obvious performance advantages over aluminum-acid batteries, such as environmental protection, low maintenance costs, high energy density, strong environmental adaptability, and long service life, making them more suitable for use in 4G communication base stations.

3. With the gradual popularization of 4G communication base stations, the demand for new and improved base station construction by communication operators will grow rapidly in the future, driving the growth of demand for communication lithium batteries.

At present, the mainstream of communication lithium batteries are ternary system and lithium iron phosphate system, which are two relatively complementary technical paths. Ternary battery has higher energy density and shorter cycle times, while lithium iron phosphate battery has high safety performance and high cycle performance. From the perspective of cost, since the average service life of lithium iron phosphate battery is longer than that of ternary battery, the unit cost of lithium iron phosphate is lower.

In the entire communication energy storage system, the battery is only a part of it. In addition, there are BMS, wiring harnesses and building structures. Among them, battery management system (BMS) technology is the key to the communication energy storage system.