Dynamic growth of the German battery market

Last year, the German battery market as a whole recorded an remarkable increase of 62 percent to a current value of 16.34 billion euros. The largest share of this market was sales of lithium-ion batteries, which generated a turnover of 11.63 billion euros. This segment again achieved strong growth of 92 percent compared to the previous year. Lithium batteries are used in various dynamic markets, such as smartphones, power tools and e-mobility. Another significant growth was recorded in the market for other battery systems, which reached a volume of 3.73 billion euros. This market includes zinc-air batteries (e.g. for hearing aids), lithium button cells and nickel-cadmium batteries (e.g. for railway applications).

The market for lead-acid batteries, on the other hand, has decreased about 10 percent to just under 1 billion euros. Lead batteries have proven to be the only mass-market battery product in certain applications. Examples include starter batteries in cars, uninterruptible power supply systems in hospitals and data centres, and power storage solutions in a variety of other applications. One possible reason for the negative growth in 2022 could be the weak automotive economy due to supply chain issues.

In the field of renewable energies or electromobility, one finds a mix of technologies. An example of this is the equipment of electric vehicles, which usually use a lithium-ion battery as the traction battery and a lead-acid battery as the on-board battery (especially for safety applications).

Developments over the five-year period (2018 - 2022)

In the period from 2018 to 2022, the German battery market achieved an impressive growth of 352 percent. This underlines the growing importance of energy storage devices in all their variants. A clear example of this is the market volume of lithium-ion batteries, which has increased more than sevenfold compared to 2018 - this growth is largely due to the increase in imports to Germany. The market for lead batteries in Germany has been declining in recent years and is below the 2018 level. One reason for this negative dynamic in the last two years is certainly to be found in the overall weak sales figures of the German automotive industry as well as lower automobile production. In contrast to lithium batteries, Germany still has a broad production base for lead-acid batteries, which means that a significant part of domestic demand is covered by domestic production.

Battery industry in Germany

Within the EU, Germany is the most important producer of batteries, especially lead batteries. In the long term, Germany will also be one of the largest locations for lithium batteries. In 2022, for example, lithium battery production in Germany increased by 44 percent compared to 2021. This means that significant increases were also recorded last year in production as well as in imports and exports.

The number of employees grew by an impressive 21 percent to 14,561 in 2022. New orders in 2022 were up 28 percent compared to 2021.

Source: zvei.org, ZVEI, 31.05.2023
Images: ZVEI