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Copper is an important strategic mineral resource and a vital basic raw material for the national economy and social development. Under the goal of carbon neutrality, with the increase in copper consumption for new energy vehicles and renewable energy generation such as wind and photovoltaic power, copper consumption has entered a prosperous cycle. The development of the new energy industry not only brings an increase in the demand for copper materials but also forces copper companies to transform and upgrade to enhance the performance of copper materials. In the long term, the new energy industry will have a profound impact on the copper industry.

Copper has high conductivity, ductility, durability, and corrosion resistance. In the past, copper was mainly used in terminal fields such as construction, infrastructure, industrial manufacturing, and transportation, with a relatively stable consumption structure. After 2016, the consumption of copper in new energy industries such as new energy vehicles and photovoltaics began to grow rapidly.

Ge Honglin, Secretary of the Party Committee and President of the China Nonferrous Metals Industry Association, introduced that in recent years, China's copper processing industry has generally maintained a stable and positive development trend. In 2023, China's copper processed materials output reached 20.85 million tons, a year-on-year increase of 3.0%, with the output of various varieties continuing to grow. The net export volume of copper processed materials reached 320,400 tons, a historical high. It is worth noting that emerging industries continue to show a leading and driving development trend. Industries such as "new three items," artificial intelligence, robotics, and green energy have become the main drivers of copper consumption.

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Taking the new energy industry as an example, its characteristic is high copper density. The copper density of new energy vehicles is four times that of traditional vehicles, and new energy power generation is two to three times the copper density of traditional fossil energy power generation.

Louis Hanero, an expert from the International Renewable Energy Agency, said that electricity accounts for about 20% of the energy we use today. To achieve the goals of the Paris Agreement, by the middle of this century, this proportion needs to increase to 51%, driven by the transformation to clean energy and the electrification of key industries such as transportation and industry. Copper is a basic material for expanding the power system, and its demand will continue to grow.

In addition to the increase in quantity, the development of the new energy industry also puts forward new requirements for the performance of copper materials. Motors, battery management systems, and other electrical components in new energy vehicles require efficient current transmission, which requires copper materials to have excellent conductivity. At the same time, with the improvement of electrification level, the requirements for the purity, consistency, thinning, and high-precision processing of copper materials are also more stringent.

Under this background, the copper processing industry is accelerating transformation and upgrading. Taking Fuzhou City in Jiangxi Province, a major copper city, as an example, the deep processing rate of the city's copper processing industry has increased from less than 10% in 2020 to 51% in 2023. A development pattern led by two leading enterprises, Jinpin Copper Science and Copper Technology, has been established, striving to build a copper-based new material industry base integrating high-tech, intelligence, and environmental protection.

Chen Peirong, director of the New Material Industry Office of Fuzhou High-tech Zone, revealed that the next step will be to take Fuzhou New Energy Vehicle Industrial Park as the leader, focusing on upstream high-quality copper and aluminum smelting, midstream plate, strip, and foil processing, and downstream copper and aluminum-based new material terminals. Key introductions will be made for copper and aluminum-based new material projects such as composite copper foil, high-voltage wire束 connectors, aluminum-magnesium alloys, aluminum alloy ingots for automotive use, and billets, to create an advanced copper functional material industry cluster.

With the rapid growth of copper demand in the new energy industry, the stability of the global copper industry chain and the rationality of the price chain are facing new challenges. The copper industry must accelerate the empowerment of new quality production forces to further gain the initiative in development and new competitive advantages.

Ge Honglin suggested that in terms of copper materials, it is necessary to build an efficient copper functional material research and development system, continuously improve material performance while achieving reduction and reuse, and continuously break through the bottleneck of raw material supply. Aim at high-end copper strips, copper foil, and fine wires that depend on imports, increase research and development efforts, and achieve more import substitution as soon as possible. Focus on the scarce functional copper materials in strategic emerging industries such as the new energy industry, the new generation of information technology industry, high-end equipment manufacturing industry, new material industry, intelligent and new energy vehicle industry, and energy-saving and environmental protection industry, strive to achieve technical breakthroughs, and form new growth points and momentum.