Battery demand rose 20% year-on-year in the first quarter of 2024 to 230GWh across all end-use markets, reported Rho Motion.
In its battery demand quarterly summary, the research company noted that EV battery demand accounted for 72% of this, with Q1 sales hitting 3.1 million units. The stationary storage market enjoyed the strongest year-on-year growth of almost 40%.
Battery demand across all end-use markets is set to increase by 25–30% year-on-year in 2024 compared to 2023. It will be the first year to surpass the 1TWh battery demand mark, it said.
Iola Hughes, Head of Research at Rho Motion, said: “Despite the market’s doom and gloom sentiment, battery demand marches on, setting a solid foundation for 2024.”
According to Rho, in Q1 year-on-year:
- China grew 25%, accounting for just under 50% of global battery demand
- US & Canada growth was 20% despite a relatively weak start to the year in stationary storage
- Europe saw weakest growth, up 9%. The removal of BEV subsidies in Germany had a clear impact.
Demand was down 25% from Q4 2023, a record quarter of over 300GWh demand, it said. The slowdown was expected, with key holidays such as Chinese New Year impacting demand.
In stationary storage, over 30GWh of new capacity entered operation, it said. Over 200 grid-scale projects started operations in Q1, the largest a 1.3GWh project in Saudi Arabia.
Rho said 22 projects over 1GWh are planned to enter operation in 2024, which it sees as a strong year. In 2023, just four GWh-size projects entered operation.
In the EV market all regions experienced sales growth in Q1 2024 compared to the same period in 2023:
- China topped the list with 31% growth
- US and Canada grew at 13%
- EU and EFTA trailed at a mere 7%
- rest of the world grew 21% – Chinese exports continued to boost sales in south-east Asia and Latin America.
LFP battery technology continues to dominate the EV market in China, and NCM outside of China, said Rho. LMFP and sodium-ion batteries entered the mix in the final month of 2023, it said. Sales of EVs with these batteries will grow steadily for the rest of the year from a low level, it added.
Separately, Korea’s SNE Research reported that global EV battery pack sales in 2023 totalled 865GWh, with a value of $132 billion.
Market share taken by the top 10 manufacturers is 94%, while the top five held 78.4%, meaning that “the market dominance by the first tier battery makers is very high and the current landscape in the battery market seems to be hard to change for a while,” it said.
Continuing high interest rates mean global electrification has slowed as the initial demand for EVs terminated, it said. Car OEMs turned to profit-driven business management strategies. This slow-down is expected to linger until 2025.
Image: 2023 global EV battery sales volume by battery maker. SNE Research
