Surging ahead, China’s bigger, better batteries
It’s the world’s fastest-growing power technology – and Beijing is dominant.
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By improving battery technology, CATL and other Chinese manufacturers have given a boost to solar power and wind energy by tackling the big problem of intermittency.
PHOTO: AFP
Simon Mundy
On a production line in south-east China, machines paste a black slurry of electrode material on to a copper ribbon just five microns thick – one-20th of the width of a human hair.
Further down the line, a team of robots monitored by an AI quality inspection system will turn the strips into battery cells by cutting them with lasers, winding them into rolls and pressing them with a force equivalent to a 23-tonne weight.