The coronavirus could reduce China’s battery storage production capacity by as much as 10% to 237 gigawatt-hours this year, according to research by Wood Mackenzie.
Based on operational and announced capacity, this represents over 26GWh of production for 2020 and more capacity could be affected if delays persist, the analysts said.
The Chinese government has taken several measures to minimise human-to-human transmission, which have affected battery cell production, Wood Mackenzie said.
Wood Mackenzie senior research analyst Le Xu said: “The restriction of labour movement will hurt auto manufacturing in Hubei province, and heavy manufacturing industries in provinces such as Shandong, Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Fujian, Anhui and Guangdong.
“These provinces were expected to contribute 162GWh of battery cell production in 2020 prior to the coronavirus outbreak, equivalent to 61% of China cell manufacturing capacity.
“In addition, battery cell factories were also suspended for the past two weeks, including Tesla’s Gigafactory in Shanghai, as a result of the extension of the Chinese New Year holidays as announced by the government.”
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