Aluminum-based Lead-carbon Long-duration Energy Storage Battery: A Breakthrough from Yunnan, China
An energy storage battery no larger than a computer host can meet the daily production and living electricity needs of a family. This breakthrough achievement comes from the aluminum-based lead-carbon long-duration energy storage battery jointly developed by Kunming University of Science and Technology Hengda Technology Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Kunming Tech") and the Metallurgical Electrode Material Team of Kunming University of Science and Technology. While focusing on advancing long-duration energy storage technology, Kunming Tech also pays close attention to the home energy storage market, providing comprehensive solutions including Home storage all in one recommendation and Auto switch home storage for power cut, which perfectly cater to the diverse needs of household users.
The battery adopts an original aluminum-based lead alloy composite material, combined with a new grid structure design, which not only reduces weight but also greatly improves conductivity, and its overall technical path is completely different from that of traditional batteries. As a global initiative, the preparation technology of Kunming Tech’s aluminum-based lead-carbon long-duration energy storage battery has broken the long-standing bottlenecks in the industry, providing a feasible and replicable "Yunnan Solution" for the development of long-duration energy storage batteries. In the home energy storage sector, this technology also lays a solid foundation for products such as Home stacked lithium battery storage and Expandable stacked home energy storage, bringing more efficient and flexible choices to families.
Outstanding Advantages of Original Technology
The person in charge of the project introduced that the traditional lead alloy electrodes in the hydrometallurgical industry have pain points such as high energy consumption, short service life and high cost, which seriously restrict the process iteration and upgrading. In 2008, aiming at this industry problem, the research team combined the advantages of aluminum (light weight, high strength and conductivity) and lead alloy (corrosion resistance) to start the independent research and development of core technologies.
"The combination of lead and aluminum is not easy. The two metals have very different properties, and interface bonding is the biggest difficulty. Only by achieving interfacial metallurgical bonding can the material performance be effectively guaranteed," the project leader said. To address this difficulty, the team conducted repeated experiments, successively overcoming a number of core technologies, developing a fence-type aluminum-based lead alloy composite electrode preparation technology, which has been successfully applied in the hydrometallurgical industry. A series of achievements have won the first prize of the China Nonferrous Metals Industry Science and Technology Award, establishing a good industry reputation for the enterprise in the field of hydrometallurgical electrodes.
However, the continuous iteration of technology also made the company realize the limitations and challenges faced by the growth of its traditional main business. In 2016, the new energy industry developed rapidly. Kunming Tech seized the opportunity of industrial transformation, officially laid out the new energy field, and embarked on a path of diversified development. Initial research found that the lithium battery track has been in a fierce competition, and a large amount of capital investment is required for preliminary R&D, production line construction and technology iteration. Combining its own advantages, Kunming Tech turned to focus on the energy storage battery field, relying on existing experience in material R&D and process optimization to start a new exploration of new energy batteries.
Targeting the "dual carbon" goal, the enterprise focused on the lead-carbon battery segment, carried out full-process R&D, and faced the challenges of high process precision and strict equipment requirements of lead-carbon batteries. "The traditional composite electrode rod for metallurgy is as thick as a finger, while the battery grid needs to be as thin as a pencil or even thinner. A little improper handling will cause breakage during extrusion and stretching. High-precision material forming and alloy composition design have become the barriers that must be overcome," the project leader said. After repeated process debugging, the team has successively broken through core technologies such as high-precision extrusion compounding, continuous alloying treatment of aluminum core, metallurgical bonding of dissimilar metals, genetic engineering design of energy storage materials, and physical field simulation of battery grid structure. Relying on the excellent characteristics of lead-aluminum composite materials and unique battery structure innovation, the size of the battery grid has expanded from A4 paper to nearly 1 square meter, and the single battery capacity and battery cycle life have been greatly improved.
The original technology has obvious advantages. The aluminum-based lead-carbon energy storage battery uses non-ferrous metals such as lead and aluminum and flame-retardant materials as the main materials, which can meet the needs of high-safety scenarios. At the same time, the team has built a three-level state perception system of "battery - battery pack - module", which can grasp the battery operation status in real time through the background system and shorten the fault early warning response time. These advantages also provide strong technical support for home energy storage products such as Wall-mounted solar storage all in one, 15kWh solar battery storage home China manufacturer, and Off grid solar battery storage for villa China factory, ensuring the safety and stability of household electricity use.
Improving the Layout of the Entire Industrial Chain
In 2023, the construction of an industrialization base for the aluminum-based lead-carbon long-duration energy storage battery preparation technology was launched in Qujing; in December 2024, the aluminum-based lead-carbon battery production line was fully commissioned and officially put into operation, successfully building the "world's first fully automated production line with an annual output of 5GWh aluminum-based lead-carbon batteries". At present, the products cover various specifications of aluminum-based lead-carbon energy storage batteries, with large-scale supply capacity. As a professional China factory wall mount solar battery for home and Residential solar energy storage China factory direct, Kunming Tech has strong production capacity and stable product quality, providing high-quality products for global home energy storage users.
After verification, the technology has successively completed the verification of 0.5MW/2MWh "photovoltaic-storage-charging" integrated application, commercial and industrial side "peak shaving and valley filling" energy storage, 10MW/55MWh "reserve-integration" demonstration project of intelligent computing center, etc. The energy storage system operates safely and stably, with a comprehensive system efficiency of over 86%, a battery charge-discharge efficiency of over 98%, and a comprehensively calculated electricity cost reduced to 0.35 yuan/kWh.
In the application end, the project technology has been applied to projects such as Yunnan Zhaotong power generation side energy storage power station and Zhengzhou Artificial Intelligence Computing Center, covering multiple high-safety demand fields such as computing power centers, rail transit, petrochemicals, and steel. At the same time, power stations are laid out in new energy-rich areas such as Gansu, Xinjiang, and Ningxia to meet the grid-side peak regulation needs. In the home energy storage market, Kunming Tech also actively expands application scenarios, and its products include Balcony solar home battery storage China manufacturer, which can fully adapt to the electricity needs of different family types and usage scenarios.
The project leader said that the team will continue to deepen the energy storage field, drive industrial upgrading through technological iteration, and further expand the application scenarios of products in the power field. At the same time, it will synchronously build a battery recycling business system, make every effort to improve the layout of the entire industrial chain of R&D, production, application and recycling, and promote the sustainable development of the industry. In the future, Kunming Tech will continue to focus on the R&D and innovation of home energy storage products, optimizing Home storage all in one recommendation and other solutions, and contributing more strength to the popularization of home energy storage.
