This week, the prices of 314Ah battery cells showed a slight increase. On the cost side, battery-grade lithium carbonate prices have been climbing continuously since July, reaching a high of 64,779 yuan/mt, driving up the prices of LFP materials for ESS. Battery cell enterprises generally have a high tolerance for the current price increase, and only a price increase exceeding 10,000 yuan/mt is likely to trigger price transmission. Electrolyte prices, on the other hand, have been on a downward trend due to the impact of centralised procurement and price-driving efforts on raw materials. In terms of supply and demand, the proportion of long-term contracts among battery cell producers remains high, with the mainstream production schedule extended to September. This is mainly due to the demand transfer effect after the US tariff window period: on the one hand, domestic market-oriented projects provide resilient support; on the other hand, India's mandatory energy storage allocation policy has stimulated a surge in orders, coupled with the concentrated implementation of PV+ESS integration projects in Indonesia, jointly driving up production schedule saturation. Under this supply-demand pattern, the competitive pressure for spot order procurement has been further transmitted to small and medium-sized integrators, compressing their profits. The prices of small-scale energy storage battery cells have remained stable. Against the backdrop of weak domestic demand, overseas markets have formed a three-pillar support structure: accelerated installations driven by subsidies in Australia, the summer stockpiling cycle for household ESS in Europe, and incremental off-grid projects in Africa. The trend of capacity allocation towards the export end continues to strengthen.
SMM New Energy Industry Research Department
Wang Cong 021-51666838
Ma Rui 021-51595780
Feng Disheng 021-51666714
Lv Yanlin 021-20707875
Zhou Zhicheng 021-51666711
Zhang Haohan 021-51666752
Wang Zihan 021-51666914
Wang Jie 021-51595902
Xu Yang 021-51666760
Chen Bolin 021-51666836
Yang Le 021-51595898
Li Yisha 021-51666730
