Power lithium battery – new application in aerospace industry

After new energy vehicles and energy storage, lithium batteries are ushering in new application markets. Recently, battery manufacturers such as CATL and ZENERGY have launched power lithium batteries for the field of manned aviation. As a brand-new application scenario, what stage has the technology of aviation power lithium battery developed to? How much growth will the power lithium battery market bring in the future? This article will tell you all you want to know.

Development status of power lithium battery in China

The data shows that China has shipped 655GWh of lithium ion batteries in 2022，among which the power battery market charged 480GWh, accounting for 73.28% of the shipment. And the energy storage battery shipped 130GWh, accounting for 19.85% of the shipment. The shipment of other types of lithium ion batteries including consumer batteries was 45GWh, accounting for 6.87% of the volume.

From the perspective of the application side, the research and development and mass production of eVTOL (Electric Vertical Take off and Landing), flying cars, etc. It could become a reality within 10 years.

Three application scenarios of aviation power lithium battery

eVTOL

From the perspective of downstream applications, eVTOL is currently a visible application. The global eVTOL market is predict to reach hundreds of billions of dollars in 2030, of which batteries will account for about 20%-30%.

At present, eVTOL mainly focuses on cooperating with airlines to provide point-to-point transportation services for high-net-worth customers. However, eVTOL still needs to solve problems such as airspace, power, safety, noise, and cost, and will not form a scale in the short term.

Flying car

In the case of limited development in two-dimensional space, car companies and technology companies are targeting three-dimensional transportation space, and flying cars have broad prospects. Flying cars are still in the initial stage of development, and they still face problems such as high technical costs, insufficient safety guarantees, and inadequate management and supervision.

According to incomplete statistics, at present, car companies such as GM, Porsche, Xiaopeng, GAC, and technology companies such as Intel and Uber are all deploying flying cars. As of 2021, more than 200 companies or institutions around the world are developing flying car products, with about 420 models.

Among them, the Xiaopeng Huitian Flying Car Traveler X2 under Xiaopeng Motors-W (09868.HK) will complete its first overseas public first flight in Dubai in 2022. The company also announced that the flying car will be mass-produced in 2024 at the earliest. The price is around one million RMB.

Airliner

According to the technical director of NASA’s gas-electric hybrid propulsion project, an energy density of at least 1000Wh/kg is required to drive a large aircraft in a cruising state. At present, the batteries on the market are between 200-260Wh/kg. According to the growth rate of energy density in the industry in the past, it will take many years to explore and develop a secondary battery of 800-1000Wh/kg (a battery that can be used through charge and discharge cycles).

It is expected that in the initial stage, aviation power lithium batteries will be applied in the field of civil aviation airliners in a hybrid mode. When taking off or landing requires relatively large power, batteries can be used to assist in addition to aviation fuel to improve power performance. When the cruising stage does not require a lot of power, it can use fuel, which greatly improves the fuel economy.

As for pure electrification, it is estimated that long-distance routes or intercontinental routes are not realistic, but some short-distance regional flights may have applications in the future. Of course, this is based on a great improvement in battery technology, which can solve the problem of energy density and battery life.

Factors affecting the aviation power battery market space

There are three main factors affecting the aviation power battery market space, namely security, performance and policies (airspace opening and airworthiness certification).

● Security
Safety is the most important factor. The aviation-level safety requirement is a failure probability of 10-9, especially for manned aviation. Extremely high safety is a big challenge for aviation batteries. It is reported that high specific energy lithium battery technology is the most critical technology in the research and development of electric aircraft. Among them, thermal runaway of lithium battery is a serious safety risk, and it must be shown that it meets the safety requirements of airworthiness standards to ensure the safety of aircraft operation.

In March 2023, according to China Civil Aviation News, China’s first aviation power lithium battery thermal runaway compliance verification test was successful in Chongqing, marking a major breakthrough in the application of high specific energy lithium batteries in aircraft.

● Performance
The performance of aviation power batteries must be extreme in all aspects. For example, due to the need for take-off, the weight of the battery should be light, so the energy density requirement is high. If you want to land smoothly and safely when the battery is insufficient, or to deal with emergencies such as forced landing, the battery power also needs to meet higher requirements.

In addition, the mainly operating modes of current electric aviation are equivalent to air taxis, that is, fixed-point operations within cities or between cities. It may fly many round trips a day, so fast charging is required. Battery technologies such as high safety, high energy density, high power density, long cycle life, and fast charging are key technologies to be solved urgently for electric aircraft, which directly affect the range and endurance of electric aircraft, the efficiency of take-off, landing, and climb phases, and fast charging capabilities. 

● Policy
Electric aviation means that low-altitude airspace needs to be opened in terms of policy. At present, Europe and the United States are leading the way, and China’s low-altitude airspace management reform is also constantly advancing. In 2020, Hunan Province was approved to become China’s first pilot province for global low-altitude management reform.

As early as 2010, the Chinese government announced that the low-altitude airspace reform pilot project will be promoted in China since 2011. It’s just that the aviation industry’s airworthiness certification is much more demanding than the automotive industry in terms of sophistication, complexity, and certification cycle, so it will take longer to scale up.

Aviation power vs. ship power

As competitors in the field of transportation, when compare aviation power vs. ship power, who is more likely to become the second largest application market for power lithium batteries after new energy vehicles in the short to medium term? At present, the development process of the two is relatively similar.

Aviation power batteries will be the first to be used in small and medium-sized air traffic types or short-distance regional civil aviation. Similarly, the current installed ship types are mainly concentrated in inland lakes, inland rivers, and offshore ports.

From the perspective of the market size of the two, with the successive breakthroughs in ship power system networking technology, ship electric propulsion technology, and high-power power grid-connected technology, the electrification penetration of large and long-distance shipping is expected to start. Therefore, the current ship power market is larger, and leading companies in the lithium battery industry have also deployed related businesses.

According to the official website of China Classification Society (CCS), it has provided 10 battery companies including CATL, CALB-tech, EVE, Gotion, Sunwoda, REPT, Ganfeng Lithium, Lishen and Great Power of issued type approval certificates for lithium battery-related products, covering batteries, modules, BMS hardware and battery packs.

However, because the applications in the ship field are mostly commercial scenarios and have not penetrated into the civilian field, the market size is far less than that of the aviation market. According to the Morgan Stanley research report, in 2030, the eVTOL industry will form a market size of 300 billion US dollars, while the electric ship will only be 10 billion US dollars.

Leading manufacturers exploring aviation power battery technology

Unlike the two main technical routes of new energy vehicle power batteries that are already very mature – ternary and lithium iron phosphate, the mainstream technology of aviation power batteries has not yet been determined, but it is generally believed that ternary is more likely to take the role.

Taking eVTOL as an example, eVTOL deduces the battery technology route based on performance, which is different from the synchronous and iterative development model of electric vehicles and battery technology routes. The start and development stages of the two are different. eVOLT values factors such as safety(carrying people), low temperature performance(relatively low high-altitude temperature), energy density(light weight), and instantaneous charge and discharge rate(large take-off and landing rates), and ternary is able to meet these elements.

In January 2021, the Airworthiness Certification Office of the Northeast Regional Administration of Civil Aviation of China issued the RX1E-A two-seat electric aircraft 50Ah battery system model qualification data sheet, marking the airworthiness certification of China’s 50Ah aviation power lithium battery system in China’s civil aviation.

This model is a battery cell jointly developed by Liaoning General Aviation Research Institute and Rongsheng Mengguli Power Technology Co., Ltd. on the basis of a 40Ah power battery. The energy density of the battery cell has increased from 240Wh/kg to 300Wh/kg, which was the battery cell with the highest energy density of aviation power lithium battery in the world at that time.

According to the official website of Rongshengmeng Guli Power Technology Co., Ltd., the electrochemical energy storage system of the 50Ah battery system is a ternary material. In May 2023, Zenergy held a technical conference and launched aviation batteries with an energy density of 320Wh/kg, all using ternary materials such as NCM 30Ah, NCM 8Ah, NCM 68Ah, and NCM 24A.

In terms of listed companies, as early as 2019, there were media reports that BYD (002594.SZ) will work closely with Airbus Battery CoC, and the two parties are committed to developing new batteries for various aerospace vehicles.

Farasis Energy announced in 2021 that their battery products used for eVTOL have been mass-produced, equipped with 285Wh/kg batteries, and the flight time is 43 minutes with speed of 320km/h, and the flight distance is 250km. The flight test of the manned electric aircraft has been completed .

CATL announced in April 2023 that the energy density of the company’s condensed battery cells is as high as 500Wh/kg, and it is cooperating in the development of civil electric manned aircraft projects.

In addition, in November 2021, Japanese battery company GSYUASA and Kansai University jointly developed a light-weight high-energy-density lithium-sulfur battery. The research was part of Japan’s New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organization (NEDO) Electric Aircraft Project, which aims to develop light-weight, high-capacity batteries that can be installed on electric aircraft.