New Discovery of Lithium Ore in China Helps the Development of Solar Power Generation and Transformation of Resource Development Pattern

Publish: January 13,2025   Last Upadate: January 13,2025   Tag:  

On January 8, the Ministry of Natural Resources of China Geological Survey announced major news: the development of lithium ore in the country has achieved major breakthroughs, which includes new discoveries of West Kunlun Songpan Ganzi spodumene type metallogenic belt discovered for 2,800 kilometers with the cumulative amount of proven reserves of more than 6.5 million tons, with world-class resource potentiality of more than 30 million tons; broke through the technical difficulties of Jiangxi and other lipolite lithium mining technology problems and greatly enhanced lithium resources in salt lakes on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, with more than 10 million tons of new resources added.

 

China's global share of lithium reserves soared from 6% to 16.5%, an increase of 10.5 percentage points, and the world ranking jumped from sixth to second. China's lithium reserves jumped to the second largest in the world, a major breakthrough in the energy field; the development of solar power generation and related resources development and utilization has had a profound impact.

 

In that future, lithium, also named as "king of metals" and "white oil", will hold a commanding position in the commanding height of new-energy vehicles, energy storage system, mobile communication, disease treatment, and nuclear reactor fuel.

 

In nature, 70% of lithium resources are contained in salt lakes, and 30% exist in ores. More than 150 kinds of lithium minerals and lithium-bearing ores have been found, and the common ones are spodopene, lithiumite, lithiumite, lithiumite, and ferrolithiumite. Most of the extracted lithium is used to manufacture lithium batteries, and the stability of its supply is very important to the healthy development of the whole industrial chain.

 

Before the discovery, global lithium resources were mainly distributed in Chile, Australia, Argentina, China, the United States, Brazil, Zimbabwe, and other 20 countries. In a long period, Chinese lithium resources rely on imports, which increased the cost burden of enterprises but also impacts the development of relevant industries in the supply and demand imbalance or in emergencies.

 

Since the cost of batteries accounts for 30%-50% of the total cost of electric vehicles and energy storage systems, sufficient local lithium resources will surely lower the price of lithium batteries. In the future, with the development and utilization of new lithium mines, the price of electric vehicles and energy storage systems will be more advantageous, which will surely stimulate the market vitality of cost reduction and competitiveness of Chinese lithium battery enterprises.

 

 

In the field of solar energy, lithium plays a major role. Along with the continued growth in the installed scale of solar power generation, its intermittency and instability have become increasingly obvious. The high energy density, excellent charge and discharge efficiency, and long cycle life have given lithium batteries the lead in energy storage with overwhelming advantages.

 

Sufficient supply in lithium resources will effectively reduce the cost of lithium batteries, thus promoting the wide application of large-scale energy storage systems in solar power generation projects. Extra energy can be stored during the day in off-grid solar power stations of remote areas by the lithium battery energy storage system, and it also can ensure stable power output at night or in rainy days, which greatly improves the reliability and availability of solar power generation and expands the application scenarios of solar energy.

 

the influence on the development and utilization of other resources

1. Energy storage system reinforcement

Improve the reliability of energy storage: Solar power generation is intermittent and volatile, and energy storage systems are crucial to ensure a stable power supply. The discovery of lithium resources provides more adequate raw materials for the production of lithium batteries. Lithium batteries have a high energy density and are able to store a large amount of electricity in a relatively small size and weight. This will allow the solar power system to be installed with a much better energy storage device that will store energy during the day when there is adequate sunlight, releasing energy at night or whenever the light conditions are not good enough on cloudy days, hence considerably enhancing the power supply reliability for the solar power system.

 

Optimizing energy storage costs: An increase in lithium mineral resources means better and more stable raw material supplies for lithium batteries; this will decrease the production cost of lithium batteries. Storage cost is the most important factor in the solar power industry. It is supposed that this can allow more solar power projects to equip themselves with a large-scale energy storage system to further enhance cost performance of the whole solar power system. An example can be seen from these off-grid systems' energy storage in remote areas that have gone so low they're able to deliver more stable, economical electric power to these remote area residents.

 

2.To promote the industrial chain coordinative development of upstream and downstream sectors.

Improvement in the upstream industry: The discovery of new lithium resources in the mining and refining link will attract more investment in capital and technology. This is conducive to enhancing the mining technologies of lithium ores, improving mining efficiency, and reducing the adverse impact on the environment. Meanwhile, it will help advance lithium refining technology, increasing the purity and output of lithium for better raw materials in midstream lithium battery manufacturing.

 

Expansion and optimization of the midstream industry: For enterprises engaging in the manufacture of lithium batteries in the middle stream, the sufficient lithium mineral resources serve as a foundation for production scale expansion. Using stable, low-cost lithium raw materials, enterprises can build more production lines and increase capacity. Besides, more resources could be put into research and development for continuously optimizing lithium battery performance by improving the cycle life of the battery or the charging/discharging efficiency. Such high-performance lithium batteries would better satisfy the demands of solar energy storage systems and provide the solar power industry with more reliable energy storage equipment.

 

Improvement of efficiency in downstream industry: In the case of downstream solar power generation projects, the reduction of energy storage costs and performance improvement of lithium batteries will enable project developers to reduce investment in energy storage costs and improve overall income. This will stimulate more enterprises to invest in solar power projects and speed up the development of the solar power industry. For instance, it's imaginable that in some large-scale solar-powered power plants, the majority of the developers use much more affordable lithium battery energy storage systems to further contribute to peak shifting and valley filling of the electrical energy and effectively improve the stability of the generating system while bringing more economic values.

 

3. To drive technological innovation and industrial integration

Lithium resources guaranteed energy for the intensification of interdependent integration and coordinated development, for example between solar energy production and energy networks. During such integration processes, using systems like generation through solar panels, energy storage mechanisms with core mechanisms of LiB, smart power distribution, amongst other technologies may attain efficient and effective management to assure optimal distributions in distributed energy management. For example, in smart microgrids, solar power generation and lithium battery energy storage work together, and users can flexibly adjust energy use and storage according to their own electricity demand and price fluctuations, thus improving the efficiency of energy utilization.

 

Cross-industry application expansion: The development of the solar power industry supported by lithium resources will promote its integration with and innovation of other industries. As is shown, in the field of communication base stations, it provides the base station with stable backup power through solar power generation combined with a lithium battery energy storage system, which effectively reduces dependence on traditional power grids and improves the reliability of the communication system. In the field of construction, it can be combined with building lithium battery energy storage to realize zero or low energy consumption of buildings and promote the development of green buildings.