Aluminum alloy cable brings new hope to China's wire and cable industry

Good video transmission design is a very important part of video surveillance system. If the camera, lens, monitor and video recorder that can produce or process high-quality images are selected for a set of built system, but there is no good transmission system, the image seen on the monitor will not be satisfactory. As the most important transmission medium, wire and cable products play an indispensable role in the fields of data, video and audio transmission and power connection of security system.
With the improvement of China's industrialization, infrastructure and urbanization, the cable industry is bound to mature. There is obvious polarization in the industry and the industry concentration is increased. Among them, the top ten in the United States occupy 67% of the market share, the top six in Japan occupy 65% of the market share, and the top five in France occupy 90% of the market share. Although the industry concentration is low, resulting in the cable industry market in a scattered market state, the wire and cable industry has maintained a high growth, the production efficiency has been rapidly improved, the upgrading of products has been accelerated, the product structure has become more reasonable, the industrial capital structure has become increasingly diversified, and the marketization process has been significantly accelerated; Especially in the coastal and economically developed areas, the advantages of wire and cable manufacturing industry are obvious, and the regional differences are further expanded.
In the next five years, China's power grid will usher in a golden period, and the wire and cable industry will have a "great opportunity". With the increasing investment of national policies and State Grid Companies in smart grid, in order to coordinate with the implementation of national west to East power transmission, power grid transformation and other projects, and the gradual advancement of urbanization, the market capacity of wire and cable closely related to power transmission and distribution will maintain a considerable growth of 8% - 9% per year in the next five years, and the wire and cable industry will usher in new opportunities.
According to the Yubo smart Industry Market Research Center, the average investment in research and development of China's wire and cable industry is less than 1% of the sales volume, and more than 90% of the domestic cable enterprises' production capacity is concentrated in low-end products. With the increasing demand for technological innovation, process innovation and material innovation, some domestic wire and cable enterprises have also increased their investment in innovation.

China's wire and cable industry has always had problems with low technical level, mainly due to low production efficiency, low automation, high energy consumption, incomplete on-line detection, poor reliability, serious surplus, poor quality, threats to industry development safety, and delayed after-sales service. In particular, the industry's technical innovation system has not yet been formed, and its independent design and development capacity is poor. It basically stays at the low level of Surveying and mapping and imitation, The design technology of wire and cable products has not been fully mastered, and the development mechanism of organic combination of wire and cable products, materials, processes and equipment has not been formed. Therefore, it is difficult to meet the development needs of the industry.
No country dares to ignore the strong temptation of the Chinese market. The huge market formed by China's sustained and rapid economic growth has attracted the attention of the world. All industries have focused on the Chinese market, and the same is true of the wire and cable industry. In the short decades of reform and opening up, the huge production capacity formed by China's cable manufacturing industry has impressed the world. In the world, China's total output value of wire and cable has surpassed that of the United States, becoming the world's largest wire and cable producer. The sustained and rapid growth of China's economy has provided a huge market space for cable products. With the continuous expansion of the scale of China's power industry, data communication industry, urban rail transit industry, automobile industry, shipbuilding and other industries, the demand for wires and cables will also grow rapidly. The conductor aluminum alloy technology and aluminum alloy cable products will also be introduced into China. In the future, the wire and cable industry has great development potential.
However, China's wire and cable industry has been restricted by the chronic diseases of some industries for a long time, and it is difficult to develop and grow. The output value of China's cable industry exceeds 1.2 trillion yuan, but the enterprises are small in scale, of which the largest output value is only about 10 billion yuan. Most of the enterprises in the industry are small in scale and have poor innovation ability. The products can only fight a price war in the low-end field, and the overall average profit rate of the industry is less than 5%. In China, the pure buyer's market has led to the serious problems of bad debts and bad debts of cable enterprises, and a round of triangular debt crisis has broken out from time to time. Most enterprises are struggling in the fierce market competition.
Technological progress has brought an excellent opportunity to China's wire and cable industry, that is, a new type of cable conductor material technology, i.e. conductor aluminum alloy technology and aluminum alloy cable products, which started in the United States in 2006. This technology was introduced into the Chinese market by two American companies. After that, China's aluminum alloy cable market was gradually detonated. According to the forecast data, in the next few years, even if the use level of aluminum alloy cables in China only reaches the current international average level (30%), it will quickly form a huge market of 300 billion yuan per year. Such a huge market undoubtedly immediately attracted the attention of many enterprises in the industry.
After entering China, the aluminum alloy cable has not been able to widely open the market. One important reason is the actual performance. Although the aluminum alloy cable does not improve the conductivity of the pure aluminum cable, the physical and mechanical properties of the aluminum alloy cable, such as bending, compressive creep and corrosion resistance, have been greatly improved. Compared with copper cable, aluminum alloy cable has incomparable advantages in weight, price and engineering installation. In other words, on the premise of the same electrical performance and better mechanical performance, aluminum alloy cables are more economical and widely used.
Many wire and cable enterprises want to enter such a huge market, but China's cable industry, which is mainly composed of small and medium-sized wire and cable enterprises, has not been able to fully expand this market. This is because aluminum alloy cables have high technical content and large investment in production equipment. They need mature material formula, production technology and talents. Neither large nor small enterprises have such conditions for the time being. The production of conductor aluminum alloy materials requires patented formula, self melting and casting rolling to ensure the quality of alloy materials. Cable production also requires multi-channel toughening and other production process requirements, and requires specialized technology, mature process, specialized production and management personnel, special production equipment, etc. to produce qualified alloy cable products. The industry threshold is high, and it is difficult for unprofessional manufacturers without strength and mature production conditions to participate.
According to the forecast report on the development prospects of China's wire and cable industry, as a new technology, aluminum alloy cable manufacturing is highly professional, requires high equipment, and is difficult in technology and process. All copper cables start from conductor processing. Since copper conductor is a single metal material, the material quality is easy to control. However, due to different conductor materials, the production equipment, production technology and process of aluminum alloy cables are very different from those of traditional copper cables. The equipment and technology of conductor alloy melting, continuous casting and rolling of conductor alloy materials, special equipment, special technology and special production process for aluminum alloy cables are required. The quality control of the production of aluminum alloy cables is to start from the melting of alloy materials and form qualified conductor aluminum alloy rods after casting and rolling under the equipment guarantee, strict process and technical control. The quality assurance of aluminum alloy rod is the premise of ensuring the quality of aluminum alloy cable. If the conductor aluminum alloy rod cannot be produced by ourselves, the quality of the rod cannot be controlled at all, and the quality of the produced aluminum alloy cable cannot be mentioned. Compared with traditional cable production, alloy cable production requires higher and more advanced equipment, technology and process. At present, domestic non professional aluminum alloy cable manufacturers do not have these conditions and capabilities.
The biggest advantage of aluminum alloy cable is cost saving. As we all know, the price of copper cable varies greatly, which is mainly caused by the different raw materials used in the production process. The main raw materials for producing copper cables are electrolytic copper, insulating materials and sheath materials. At present, the electrolytic copper in the raw material market is about 50000 yuan per ton, while the recovered copper and recycled copper are only about 40000 yuan per ton; The price of qualified insulating materials and sheathing materials is between 8000 and 10000 yuan per ton, while the price of defective products is only 4000 to 5000 yuan per ton, with a wide price difference. In addition, insufficient conductor cross-section, good or bad copper doping, and insufficient cable length are also important reasons for price differences. The qualified cable products are produced according to the requirements of national standards, and the non-standard products or defective products are not only the raw materials are fake and inferior, but also the cable section and length do not meet the requirements of national standards. There are also differences in the prices of aluminum alloy cables, because the main raw materials of qualified aluminum alloy cables not only meet the electrical performance requirements of the international aa-8000 series aluminum alloy conductor material chemical composition and alloy conductor conductivity, but also meet the mechanical performance requirements of the aluminum alloy conductor in elongation, conductor flexibility, tensile strength and creep resistance. The qualified aluminum alloy cable has the characteristics that the whole series of products are cross-linked polyethylene insulation and flame retardant sheath of various flame retardant levels, the sheath does not contain heavy metals such as lead and cadmium, and the aluminum alloy belt is interlocked with armor. Although the aluminum alloy cable is widely publicized and the concept is deeply rooted in the hearts of the people, there is not much that can be produced in China. It is understood that at present, only two American companies have factories in China and a few professional manufacturers with alloy cable intellectual property technology and equipment can produce qualified alloy cables in China.
In terms of cost and price, the aluminum alloy cable does not have many advantages over the copper cable. The cost advantage of the aluminum alloy cable over the copper cable is mainly that the same weight material can produce different lengths of cables. For example, there are many unqualified alloy cables in the market. First, the conductor materials of these cables are unqualified. Secondly, because the manufacturer does not have the core formula technology, mature alloy cable production technology and production process, the alloy cable products produced cannot meet the requirements of qualified alloy cables

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