After experiencing a market boom triggered by technological concepts such as artificial intelligence, humanoid robots, and low altitude economy in the first quarter of this year, the market has entered a performance verification period with the disclosure of the first quarter reports of listed companies.

Due to the lack of new strong expectations guidance, investors have refocused their attention on areas with solid fundamental support.

In this context, the lithium battery industry, especially its potential for value enhancement in the electrification process of traditional application scenarios, is regaining market attention.

Among them, ship electrification is becoming a new focus due to its huge market penetration space and significant demand for high-capacity batteries.

Ship electrification is seen as a new blue ocean for lithium battery applications. Some market analysis agencies predict that the global ship electrification rate is expected to reach 20% by 2025.

Meanwhile, as of September last year, data shows that Chinese shipping companies have taken on over 70% of global green ship orders, indicating that the electric ship market is accelerating its expansion, bringing considerable opportunities for power battery and related system suppliers.

In the early stages of the development of electric ships, the market's requirements for power batteries mainly focused on meeting basic operating standards, including ensuring safety, adapting to high temperature performance in marine environments, having a sufficiently long cycle life, and meeting short-term power demand discharge capabilities.

In this context, the use of lithium iron phosphate chemical system and the focus on high-capacity battery products have become the mainstream in the market. At the same time, in order to alleviate the initial investment pressure on ship operators, especially early adopters, the "battery swapping combined with energy storage" operation model was once more popular due to its economic viability.

However, as the application of electric ships gradually expands from small tonnage ships in inland rivers and ports to larger tonnage commercial transport ships, a single battery solution that meets basic needs is no longer sufficient. The market's demand for differentiated battery performance has significantly increased, opening up space for the application of new technologies such as fast charging.

Reflecting this shift, fast charging performance has recently become a new competitive focus in the field of marine batteries.

In March of this year, Ruzhong Innovation Airlines released its latest marine battery product matrix, covering energy type (320Ah) and power type (230Ah) long-life battery cells, and specially launched a 163Ah 2C fast charging cell.

It is reported that the L173F163 2C fast charging core adopts low expansion graphite technology and high dynamic electrolyte, which can achieve continuous 2C and peak 4C high rate charging and discharging while ensuring long cycle life. The 2C fast charging battery system developed based on this battery cell is expected to achieve mass production in the third quarter of this year.

In addition, lithium industry giant Jiangxi Ganfeng Lithium Battery and intelligent equipment enterprise Fujian Xingyun Co., Ltd. recently signed a strategic cooperation agreement. Both parties plan to deepen cooperation in the fields of solid-state battery technology, intelligent detection equipment, energy storage systems, and integrated solutions for light storage, charging, and inspection, to jointly promote the application of new energy technology in areas such as ships.

It is worth noting that Nebula Corporation released its first centralized supercharging system for ships earlier this year. These trends clearly indicate that with the deepening of ship electrification, industry participants are actively seeking to improve operational efficiency through fast charging technology.

The advancement of ship battery technology is not limited to the improvement of charging speed, but also includes the acceleration of cross-border collaboration and technology transfer. In the marine battery market, not only traditional marine equipment manufacturers have emerged, but also power battery companies that have been deeply rooted in the fields of heavy-duty trucks, engineering machinery, or energy storage for many years.

These enterprises have a first mover advantage in penetrating the shipbuilding industry by leveraging their experience in the research and production of high-capacity battery cells. Applying high-capacity battery cells to multiple scenarios such as energy storage, commercial vehicles, and ships is becoming a popular strategy for power battery companies to achieve differentiated competition and absorb new production capacity.

For example, Zhongchuang Innovation Aviation has utilized its 320Ah battery cells to create a walk-in box type power system. The system adopts a standard 20 foot container design, achieves modular deployment, and is equipped with megawatt level dynamic strategy management, aiming to meet the diverse needs of ocean going cargo ships, port operation ships, luxury yachts, and more.

Ruipu Lanjun is also expanding its accumulation in the fields of energy storage and commercial vehicle batteries to the shipping market, and has been confirmed to supply high-capacity battery cells for a large inland pure electric zero carbon container ship project in Shanghai.

Penghui Energy has developed a shared battery swapping solution for heavy trucks and ships, emphasizing the advantages of modular design. Its LSE stacked frameless integration technology is said to significantly improve space utilization and reduce battery pack weight.

At the same time, solid-state batteries, especially polymer based semi-solid batteries, which are considered the next generation of battery technology, have also begun to seek application opportunities in the field of ships. This type of technology is currently showing the characteristic of being the first to achieve industrialization on large capacity battery cells.

Guangdong Weilan recently put into operation its 6GWh high-capacity semi-solid battery cell production line and expressed its hope to expand the market into the field of electric ships.

Dongchi Energy, a polymer solid-state battery company, has partnered with Korey Energy and Shanghai Yihang to promote its solid-state battery products in hybrid new energy ships.

Hunan Jiusen New Energy has released a 618Ah high-capacity all solid state battery called "Haina", with an energy density of 280Wh/kg, targeting both energy storage and ships.

However, there are different opinions in the industry regarding the application prospects of solid-state batteries in the field of ships.

Some argue that compared to fields such as the military, which have extremely strict safety requirements, ship applications have relatively lower requirements for battery safety. This may diminish the attractiveness of solid-state batteries in the ship industry, and their commercialization process may not be as rapid as expected.