In December 2024, the 11th China Refrigeration and Air Conditioning Industry Information Conference and "Aluminum Replacing Copper" Technology Development Forum, jointly hosted by the China Refrigeration and Air Conditioning Industry Association and the National Refrigeration and Air Conditioning Equipment Standardization Technical Committee, was held in Xiamen. In recent years, with the rapid development of cold chain logistics, data centers, heat pumps and other fields, the demand for copper in the industry has further increased. As an important strategic mineral resource, copper prices remain high, which increases manufacturing costs for enterprises. And processed aluminum materials are comparable to copper materials in terms of corrosion resistance, leakage resistance, compression resistance, plasticity, and heat exchange. The practical application of "aluminum replacing copper" technology is no longer a new phenomenon. As a former major consumer of copper in the home appliance industry, refrigerators have basically replaced copper with aluminum many years ago. According to the "White Paper on Aluminum Applications", as early as 2007, the aluminum usage rate of condenser and evaporator in Chinese refrigerators reached 80%. At present, the aluminum usage rate of mainstream refrigerator companies' refrigerator products exceeds 90%. Most of the air conditioning industry's air supply motors have achieved aluminum wire conversion, and the scale of integrated or split air conditioning aluminum heat exchangers exported, especially in North America, has reached millions.
Gree, Midea, Haier, Hisense TCL、 Major air conditioning companies such as AUX, Daikin, and Panasonic, as well as leading companies in the upstream supply chain of industries such as heat exchangers, aluminum tubes, aluminum fins, welding materials, and mechanical transmissions, actively participate in and explore technological innovation and process breakthroughs in replacing copper with aluminum in air conditioning. In November 2024, Gree Group announced on its official website that it plans to jointly build a physical factory with Longyuan Jinko, specializing in the manufacturing of aluminum refrigeration pipes. The factory will mainly produce high-efficiency and corrosion-resistant household air conditioning aluminum pipes and microchannel manifolds. The project will be successfully put into operation before October 2025. Midea Building Technology began researching aluminum heat exchangers as early as 2012. Midea's aluminum round tube heat exchangers were widely used in 2017, mainly for indoor air conditioning units, while microchannel aluminum heat exchangers have been applied to the North American rooftop machine series since 2020. The group standard "Construction Specification for Aluminum Tube Fin Heat Exchanger Production Line for Room Air Conditioner" of the China Refrigeration Society has been approved, providing a standard basis for the promotion of aluminum heat exchangers Under the active promotion of the entire upstream and downstream industrial chain, the air conditioning industry has achieved significant results in the work of "replacing copper with aluminum".