Recently, Taiyuan's first Zhichu 100 MW standalone ESS power station was connected to the power grid at full capacity. The project is Taiyuan's first standalone ESS power station, marking a new breakthrough and a key step forward in the city's construction of a new-type power system. The Taiyuan Zhichu 100 MW standalone ESS power station is a key project under Shanxi Province's "14th Five-Year Plan" for new-type energy storage development. Covering an area of approximately 29 mu, with a total investment of 390 million yuan and a total installed capacity of 50 megawatt hours, the station adopts the highly safe hybrid technology of "flywheel energy storage + LFP battery." Composed of 12 prefabricated modular energy storage units, it functions as a large-scale "super power bank," capable of storing or releasing 50,000 kWh of electricity per hour, meeting the daily electricity needs of nearly 30,000 households simultaneously.

Copper prices moved closer to record highs on May 8, driving strong gains in shares of BHP and Rio Tinto. Investors are increasingly betting that AI infrastructure, power grid upgrades, and clean energy investment will create long-term structural demand for copper. Analysts in Australia said discussions around a new commodity supercycle are intensifying as capital flows back into mining stocks.

The correction in precious metal prices initially continued as expected over the course of this week.

According to the Dalong Development Zone News and Information Center, during the Labour Day holiday, construction sites of major key projects in Dalong Development Zone, Guizhou were bustling with activity and operating at full capacity. At the project site of Guizhou Depu New Materials Technology Co., Ltd.'s 20,000 mt/year lithium-ion anode material project, nearly 60 workers remained at their posts, pushing forward with all construction tasks at full speed. "Currently, the main structures of two factory buildings have been completed. Workshop No. 3 is undergoing accelerated installation of 10 sets of roller mills, 45 sets of reactors, and other core equipment. Workshop No. 4 has completed the installation of roof panels and wall panels, and internal site leveling work is underway. The comprehensive building and the 110KV substation are also under simultaneous construction, with subsequent work to advance the improvement of fire protection facilities and hardening of the factory area roads," said Liu Shaofeng, the company's administrative supervisor. He noted that during the Labour Day holiday, workers strictly controlled project quality and safety, striving to achieve phased trial production by the end of June.

On April 21, 2026, SMS group announced that its subsidiary Paul Wurth has entered a definitive agreement with Tata Steel to convert Blast Furnace E at the Jamshedpur plant into an electrically assisted syngas smelter (EASyMelt). This world-first industrial-scale implementation uses plasma torches to superheat syngas, which is then injected into the furnace to replace coke. The project aims to cut CO2 emissions by over 50%, providing a critical blueprint for decarbonizing existing "brownfield" blast furnace assets globally.

With the rapid development of the global NEV industry and the growing embrace of green and low-carbon concepts, the battery recycling industry is transforming from a marginal sector into a "new frontier" in the capital market, demonstrating unprecedented development potential. This industry, once regarded as merely "selling scrap," has now become a core necessity for safeguarding national resource security, implementing the "dual carbon" strategy, and promoting the sustainable development of the new energy industry, ushering in its own golden era. Strong policy support has injected robust momentum into the industry's development. In February 2025, the General Office of the State Council issued the *Action Plan for Improving the NEV Power Battery Recycling and Utilization System*, requiring the acceleration of relevant regulations and rules to standardize recycling and utilization through rule of law. Subsequently, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, together with the Ministry of Ecology and Environment, the State Administration for Market Regulation, and other departments, jointly issued the *Interim Measures for the Recycling and Comprehensive Utilization of Waste Power Batteries from NEVs*, setting new requirements across multiple dimensions including power battery traceability, recycling and utilization, and supervision. Driven by both policy and market forces, the battery recycling industry has continued to expand in scale, exhibiting an "explosive" growth trajectory. Currently, the number of battery recycling-related enterprises in China exceeded 200,000. In the first ten months of 2025 alone, over 30,000 new battery recycling-related enterprises were registered, representing a YoY increase of over 15% compared to the same period last year. Top-tier enterprises such as GEM and Tianqi Co., Ltd. have ramped up capacity deployment and capital operations, building competitive barriers through technological upgrades and industry chain extensions. GEM possesses a complete "battery recycling—battery cascade reuse—raw material remanufacturing—material remanufacturing—battery reassembly" full life cycle value chain, with industry-leading scale advantages. It operates 9 major lithium battery recycling bases globally, and its lithium battery recycling volume has accounted for 10% of China's total retired battery volume for consecutive years, ranking first nationwide. As early-stage NEVs gradually retire, the lithium battery recycling industry will accelerate over the next 3 to 5 years, with an annualized growth rate exceeding 50%—a market poised for tenfold growth in 5 years. The industry consensus is that this transformation, jointly driven by price, demand, and policy, is propelling the lithium battery recycling industry from extensive development toward a refined, standardized, and globalized development stage.