Industrial tin use continues to grow

The use of tin in the battery industry is expected to grow rapidly. This is the conclusion reached by the participants of the Shanghai Tin Forum held in China. During the presentation, one of China's leading battery manufacturers, Tianneng Power, predicted that tin use in the lead-acid battery industry could increase by almost 50 percent from 12,000 tons in 2014 to 17,600 tons in 2018 in China. The increase in demand in the country for clean energy is expected to further stimulate the growth in the use of tin in batteries.

The rapid growth in tin use in recent years has occurred in China, mainly due to government measures to change the alloy used in batteries by replacing cadmium and antimony with tin, and expanding the unique e-bike market. In addition, there is a large new electric vehicle market on the tin side, as starter batteries will benefit from an increased share of hybrid vehicles in the burgeoning automotive market. Also, a significant factor in the growth in demand for industrial batteries is due to the need to store energy from the generation of solar and wind energy. Starter batteries currently account for 45 percent of the sector.

China's battery industry has undergone significant transformation over the past three years, with hundreds of companies shutting down, but manufacturing has continued to grow significantly. As a result of the change in the terms of access to the sale of lead-acid batteries, 1,749 battery manufacturers were registered on July 1, 2012, which were reduced to 485 in September 2014.

The number of e-bikes in China has now reached 190 million, with annual sales of up to 30 million last year. China's boom in clean energy demand will continue to drive the explosive growth of tin in batteries. There are about 15 million electric three-wheelers in the country, and the number of four-wheeled electric vehicles has doubled to 400,000 in the past two years.