From 2019 to 2023, the total industrial output value of China’s electrical contact materials industry fluctuated greatly but generally showed an upward trend. During the COVID-19 epidemic, many sectors across the country experienced a decline in output value. Still, the total industrial output value of the electrical alloy industry increased steadily during the three years of the epidemic. On the contrary, the total industrial output value of the electrical alloy industry fell sharply in 2022 after the epidemic ended. The main reason was that the economic downturn in the real estate industry affected the consumption of low-voltage electrical appliances and switches. The export volume has increased yearly in the past five years, especially during the three years of the epidemic, when the production of foreign counterparts decreased. On the premise that the product quality is comparable to the international level, domestic electrical contact materials companies have obtained a large number of export opportunities, but the profits and profit margins have always been at a low level. See Table 1 for details.

Various indicators of the electrical contact materials industry from 2019 to 2023

Output of major products in the industry

AgCdO

The trend of silver cadmium oxide production from 2019 to 2013. With the expiration of the EU RoHS Directive exemption and the continuous improvement of the country’s environmental protection requirements, the trend of silver cadmium oxide being replaced is inevitable, but until 2021, the proportion of silver cadmium oxide in silver-based electrical contact materials will still account for about 15%, and some electrical appliance manufacturers still use more than one-third of silver cadmium oxide in certain product types. In 2022 and 2023, the output began to decline sharply and currently accounts for only about 10% of silver-based electrical contact materials.

AgSnO2(In2O3)

The trend of silver tin oxide (indium oxide) production from 2019 to 2023. As the material most likely to replace silver cadmium oxide, silver tin oxide (indium oxide) electrical contact material has received much attention from the industry. The increase in the output of this product is mainly based on two reasons. First, it has replaced silver cadmium oxide in some areas. Second, the rapid growth of the DC power transmission and distribution and new energy vehicle markets, as well as the development of clean energy and the transformation of power equipment, have increased the demand for electrical contact materials, especially silver tin oxide materials that have shown excellent performance in the new energy field.

Other silver-based electrical contact materials

Other silver-based electrical contact materials mainly include silver nickel, silver graphite, silver tungsten carbide, silver copper oxide, silver zinc oxide, etc. The output has not changed much in the past five years and will not be elaborated separately. It is worth noting that silver copper oxide in new energy vehicles and silver zinc oxide in wall switches have shown the advantages of low cost and high performance.

CuW /CuCr

The output of copper-tungsten and copper-chromium products in medium and high-voltage electrical contact materials tends to grow slowly, but the development of technologies such as smart grid transformation, grid-connected new energy power generation, and vacuum circuit breakers replacing greenhouse gas sulfur hexafluoride circuit breakers has brought great development space to the medium and high-voltage market. The demand for high-performance vacuum copper-chromium electrical contact materials and long-life electrical contact materials for frequently switched reactive power compensation circuit breakers is becoming increasingly urgent.

With the rapid development of emerging fields such as 5G base stations, rail transit, new energy vehicles, smart grids, and smart homes, many new requirements have been put forward for electrical contact materials. Traditional electrical contact materials need to improve their performance to adapt to new requirements, and new materials need to be developed to match them. In the field of high-voltage power transmission and transformation, smart grids require more reliable high-voltage circuit breakers, and the research and development of high-performance copper-tungsten and copper-chromium alloys should be accelerated to ensure the safe and reliable operation of the power grid. In DC fields such as 5G base stations and new energy vehicles, silver-tin oxide and silver-copper oxide materials with better electrical properties under DC conditions are more selected, and high-strength and high-conductivity copper alloys are also being rapidly applied; smart homes require electrical components to be more miniaturized and have better reliability, so micro-shaped contacts are developing rapidly, which puts higher requirements on alloy materials.