The ‘Battery Network’ of the ‘Battery Hundred Person Assembly’ (电池百人会), a Chinese industry association, has published research discussing the development of the country’s battery manufacturing sector in 2024, featuring the financial performance of 132 companies. Even though demand for power batteries and energy storage batteries alike is growing rapidly as wind and solar plateau, the association’s commentary is of course dominated by discussion of overcapacity. In a “deep restructuring of the profit structure”, upstream raw materials were “cleared out at an accelerated pace”, midstream materials (such as anode and cathode production) saw considerable vertical integration, and leading downstream manufacturers consolidated their position using their technological advantages. Out of 73 listed companies which had published 2024 financial results at time of…