Lead-acid battery industry increased

Recently, the "Provisional Measures for the Administration of Admission of Lead-Acid Batteries Industry" was promulgated. The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology stated in the interpretation of the conditions for entry of the lead-acid storage battery industry that the formulation of the “admission requirements” is of great significance for the prevention and control of excessive incidents of “blood lead”. Due to the rapid development of the lead battery industry in recent years, the number of “blood lead” violations that have been triggered has also increased, and the lead pollution situation is grim. China's lead battery industry management and environmental protection are necessary and urgent issues.

It is understood that, in addition to the production threshold, the “access conditions” put forward requirements for enterprises from many aspects such as process equipment, environmental protection, occupational health, energy conservation and recycling, and formed a complete access indicator system, which is more than simple. The production threshold is more comprehensive, scientific and rigorous, and achieving production capacity requirements is only the most basic condition for meeting the “access conditions”.

Lead-acid battery products have a long history and mature technology. They have been widely used in automobiles, ships, aviation, electric power, communications, banking, military and other fields for a long time. They are also the battery products with the largest market share and the widest range of use in chemical batteries. It is expected that lead batteries will not be replaced by other battery products in the coming period, and the lead battery industry will still play an indispensable role in the national economy.

According to the "12th Five-Year Plan" of the "Comprehensive Prevention and Control of Heavy Metals Pollution," lead has been included in five key heavy metal pollutants. The lead battery industry has been listed in the top five major prevention and control industries and called for "key areas in 2015 to focus on heavy metals. The amount of pollutants discharged was reduced by 15% compared with 2007, and the amount of key heavy metal pollutants in key areas did not exceed the level in 2007." In order to ensure the realization of this goal, the "Entry Requirements" requires that "the construction of lead-acid storage batteries and lead-containing components shall be prohibited in key areas for the prevention and control of heavy metal pollution" and emphasizes that "all newly-built, rebuilt and expanded projects must have a location above the provincial level. The source of the total amount of heavy metal pollutants determined by the competent authorities."

According to incomplete statistics, the current number of small and medium-sized lead battery enterprises with annual domestic production capacity below 200,000 kVA accounts for 71% of the total number of industrial enterprises, but their output only accounts for 12% of the total national output. Most of these companies are merely assembling enterprises, have low technical levels and funding thresholds, have insufficient investment in production equipment and environmental protection facilities, and have inadequate occupational health protection systems. Some home-based small assembly companies have different licenses and there is no guarantee of product quality, which seriously disrupts market order and pollution accidents occur from time to time. Therefore, the "Entry Requirements" requires that the existing company's annual production capacity is not less than 200,000 kVA. At the same time, the annual production capacity of newly-built, rebuilt or expanded enterprises is not less than 500,000 kVA. In addition, the annual pole plate production capacity of existing commercial plate manufacturers is not less than 1 million kVA.

At present, there are many problems in China's lead battery industry such as excessive number of companies, overcapacity, and unreasonable industrial structure. There are more than 1800 lead battery manufacturing enterprises that have obtained production licenses nationwide, of which less than 200 large enterprises have produced 70% of the country’s total lead battery production capacity, and more than half of the annual production capacity has been smaller than 50,000 kVA hours. And micro-enterprises, the existence of these companies caused a lot of environmental protection and regulatory issues. In response to this situation, the “Entry Requirements” put forward “strictly control new projects and make them in line with the requirements of the overall plan for resources, energy, ecological environment, and land use in the region,” and from the layout, production capacity, product types, Technology and equipment, etc., have proposed entry barriers for new construction projects. We hope that the newly-built projects will take the leading position in technology, environmental protection and occupational health at the initial stage of design and construction, avoid low-level redundant construction, and ultimately achieve sustainable development of the entire industry. Instead of limiting the number of new projects one-sidedly.

China is a big country in which lead-acid batteries are used. A large number of lead-acid batteries are naturally scrapped every year, and most of them are recycled by small recycling workshops. These small workshops often only re-smelt the lead-containing grid with high residual value in the battery, and dump the lead-containing acid solution at random. Lead-containing separators and shells are thrown away at will, causing great pollution to the environment. Therefore, the “Entry Conditions” advocates the implementation of a producer responsibility extension system, encourages lead storage battery manufacturers to establish a recycling system using sales channels, and cooperates with qualified renewable lead companies to form a complete lead battery production and recovery system.