China’s new energy storage capacity is expected to surpass 50GW by 2025
- By the end of 2022, China had a total new energy storage capacity of 8.7GW, a more than 110 per cent increase year on year
- New energy storage refers to electricity storage processes that use emerging technologies
China’s installed capacity of renewable energy reached 760GW in 2022, a 20 per cent rise year on year, according to Dai Jianfeng, an engineer at the China Electric Power Planning and Engineering Institute (CEPPEI), a Beijing-based consultancy under state-owned China Energy Engineering Group.
“The safe and reliable operation of the power system is becoming even more [of a priority]. Against this background, the demand for new energy storage, as an important technology supporting the construction of the new power system, will become even stronger,” he said at a forum in Beijing last weekend.
Compared with pumped storage, which uses water behind dams to store energy and generate electricity when needed, new energy storage is more flexible when it comes to site selection, and has other advantages, including short construction periods, faster and flexible response and more diverse functions. It also plays a crucial role in renewable power systems by ensuring a stable supply of power generated from intermittent and variable wind and solar sources.
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By the end of last year, China already had a total new energy storage capacity of 8.7GW, a more than 110 per cent increase year on year, Liu Yafang, an official at the National Energy Administration (NEA), said at the forum last weekend.
Lithium-ion battery storage plays a dominant role, accounting for 94.5 per cent of all new energy storage capacity in operation, according to CEPPEI’s Dai. However, the country’s development of new energy storage is still in the early stages, as the industry chains for other technologies such as sodium-ion batteries, compressed air storage and carbon-dioxide battery storage were still in their infancy.
“New energy storage has a wide range of uses and rich application scenarios,” Dai said. “Under the existing electricity price mechanism, the value created by new energy storage is not fully reflected, which in turn affects the investment benefits of new energy storage projects.”
He suggested further improvements in the price mechanism would provide certain support for the commercialisation of new energy storage technologies, and entice more power companies to participate.
A price mechanism is already in the making, the NEA said on its website last month. It will establish a set of policies, standards and auxiliary services to support energy storage projects’ commercialisation.
To speed up the evolution, it is also crucial to cultivate the new energy storage industry from a market-oriented approach, rather than relying on government polices, said Kevin Shang, senior research analyst at Wood Mackenzie.
“Achieving a sustainable business model and building a healthy ecosystem for new energy storage projects to function effectively will benefit the industry in the long run, rather than just meeting renewable-paring policy requirements and standing idle,” he said.
