The Great Consolidation in Batteries is Real

The Great Consolidation in Energy Storage is here. 

Once again, extremely insightful from Laurent and Gerard at Redefining Energy, talking about what is a rather alarming but frankly accurate picture of battery cell production. 

The top 10 list for battery companies is dominated by Chinese and Korean players, with CATL and BYD found to account for over 50% of global supply alone! 

Meanwhile in “sleepy Europe” as Gerard refers to it, we're still stuttering with getting battery factories up and running. Northvolt are of course leading the way here, but not without their own challenges as recently documented here. Great to see Morrow Batteries also launch their first LFP production plant (5GWh). Miniscule in comparison to the Chinese big boys, but at least a promising start. 

The episode also highlights the shift to LFP cells from all the major players, which has hindered some of the planned European Gigafactories in recent years as companies seemingly shift away from NMC chemistry. 

It's definitely worth catching the episode here

The overriding message is that we are beginning to see a real consolidation of battery suppliers, their formats, and materials selections. 

This isn't only happening at the cell and pack production level. I am already hearing from the market that for ESS in Residential / Home applications, there's a real challenge of oversupply right now. Just one lap of the Smarter E / EES Europe show in Munich in June highlighted this issue - every solar hardware company is now an ESS company and there's a huge wave of startups and SMEs coming into the sector too. It does make me wonder how many people can we fit at the table. 

C&I is more promising, as there is less market share for this application so far (approx. 10-15%) and I see more opportunities for smaller players to emerge here, albeit many will be reliant on Chinese supplied battery packs to be integrated into their solution. 

Grid-scale continues to be buoyant and the beauty of these large-scale ESS needs, is that different technologies can play a key role, for example LDES technologies to support 4+ hour duration storage needs.

It's a fascinating time of ESS demand growth at the moment, but it looks like Asia, and particularly China have this sewn up for the long-term. I think “the great consolidation” is very apt for what we're seeing in the market.

I lead the Energy Storage and Grid practice at Hyperion Executive Search. We support battery and ESS players to recruit top senior talent for their international operations. From the C-level leadership team to those key strategic FOAK or expansion hires. For more insights on how we can support your business growth, contact me at david.beeston@hyperionsearch.com