The battery is suitable for different scenarios, and the actual application has different requirements for the performance and service life of the two, which makes the battery have a division in the manufacturing field. Lithium-ion batteries can be classified into consumer, power, and energy storage batteries according to their application fields.

The consumer lithium battery market tends to be saturated, entering the stock competition, and the power and energy storage batteries are emerging. In 1991, Sony Corporation released the first commercial lithium battery, and the application of lithium-ion batteries in the commercial field began. After 2001, portable electronic devices such as mobile phones and MP3 have developed rapidly, which has led to the growth of demand in the lithium battery industry. According to Juda Lithium, in 2011, the global smartphone shipment was only 491 million units, and by 2016, the total global smartphone sales had reached 1.47 billion units. The rapid popularity of smartphones has expanded the demand for lithium batteries. However, after the rapid growth of smartphones in the past few years, the market is close to saturation, with a year-on-year growth rate of only 2% in 2016, far lower than the 10.4% growth rate in 2015. Consumer electronics such as digital cameras and tablets are similar, with year-on-year growth gradually slowing down after an initial sharp increase. In its place, emerging markets such as electric vehicles and energy storage are taking place.

1. Different application scenarios

At present, power batteries and energy storage batteries are areas with great potential for the future development of lithium batteries, and batteries used for electric vehicles and batteries used for energy storage devices are essentially energy storage batteries. At present, there is no difference between the technical principles of energy storage batteries and power batteries, but due to different application scenarios, practical applications have different requirements for the performance and service life of the two.

Power and energy storage battery system products can be divided into battery cells, modules and battery packs according to different product forms. The battery cell is the core basic unit of the power battery product, and a certain number of battery cells can be formed into modules, and further assembled into complete sets of battery packs, and finally applied in the form of battery packs in new energy vehicles.

2. There are differences in system structure and cost composition

A complete electrochemical energy storage system is mainly composed of a battery pack, a battery management system (BMS), an energy management system (EMS), an energy storage converter (PCS) and other electrical equipment. The battery pack is the most important component of the energy storage system; The battery management system is mainly responsible for the monitoring, evaluation, protection and balancing of the battery. The energy management system is responsible for data acquisition, network monitoring and energy scheduling. The energy storage converter can control the charging and discharging process of the energy storage battery pack, and carry out AC and DC conversion.

In the cost composition of the energy storage system, the battery is the most important component of the energy storage system, accounting for 60% of the cost; This is followed by energy storage inverters, accounting for 20%, EMS (energy management system) cost accounting for 10%, BMS (battery management system) cost accounting for 5%, and others accounting for 5%.

The power battery pack refers to the battery pack of the new energy vehicle, which provides energy for the operation of the whole vehicle. The vehicle power battery PACK is basically composed of the following five systems: battery module, battery management system, thermal management system, electrical system and structural system.

The cost of the power battery system is composed of comprehensive costs such as battery cells, structural parts, BMS, boxes, auxiliary materials, and manufacturing expenses. Battery cells account for about 80% of the cost, and the cost of pack (including structural parts, BMS, boxes, accessories, manufacturing costs, etc.) accounts for about 20% of the cost of the entire battery pack.

3. There is a difference in BMS

In the battery pack, the BMS (battery management system) is the core, which determines whether the various components and functions of the battery pack can be coordinated, and is directly related to whether the battery pack can provide power output for electric vehicles safely and reliably. Of course, the connection process, space design, structural strength, and system interface of structural parts also have an important impact on the performance of the battery pack.

The energy storage battery management system is similar to the power battery management system, but the power battery system is in a high-speed moving electric vehicle, and there are higher requirements for the power response speed and power characteristics of the battery, the accuracy of SOC estimation, and the number of state parameter calculations, and the relevant adjustment functions also need to be realized through BMS.