According to a report by the Japan Economic News on June 24, Kyocera Japan has developed a new generation of lithium-ion batteries that can reduce raw material costs by about 30% compared to the past. The company plans to set up a trial production line at its Osaka office in 2019, and will begin mass production of batteries for homes and factories as soon as 2020.
As long as it can reduce costs and break barriers to popularization, the use of renewable energy is expected to increase.
Lithium-ion batteries need to be filled with electrolyte between the electrodes, but Kyocera has developed a technology that injects the electrolyte into the electrode to make it clay-like. This can reduce the number of electrode layers inside the battery, and only requires a small amount of separators and current collectors to separate the electrodes. Therefore, the cost of raw materials can be reduced by about 30% compared with conventional products. Because no flammable liquid electrolyte is used, the risk of fire and smoke from battery damage is low.
Kyocera plans to establish a trial production line at its Osaka office in 2019, and strives to begin mass production as early as 2020. The first will be the production of batteries for homes and factories. It will be combined with the company's main business solar power generation equipment to promote the spread of renewable energy.
In Japan, the price of ordinary residential batteries is about 1 million yen. At present, it is difficult to recover the investment from the self-production and use of electricity generated by photovoltaic panels. However, in terms of renewable energy, some households are expected to stop selling electricity due to the termination of the renewable energy fixed price acquisition system (FIT) in November, and the situation of self-production and self-use will increase.