CATL, BYD battle for supremacy in Middle East energy-storage market
BYD, Sungrow win contracts for storage at massive UAE solar plant, as EV battery makers seek better margins selling storage systems
The two orders, totalling 18.775GWh, account for nearly all of the planned storage capacity of RTC, which features a 5.2 gigawatt solar photovoltaic plant and 19GWh of battery storage.
Located in Abu Dhabi’s desert, the RTC project was unveiled last year as the world’s first large-scale, combined solar and battery storage facility, supporting the UAE’s Energy Strategy 2050 and Net Zero by 2050 goals, according to the website of the Emirates Water and Electricity Company.
In January 2025, the megaproject was expected to be granted to CATL, which established a 19GWh partnership with Masdar that month, involving an investment of US$6 billion.
“As major battery suppliers are expecting to have a new growth engine amid the fierce race in electric-car batteries, the competition in the energy storage sector is inevitable,” said Yale Zhang, managing director at the consultancy Automotive Foresight in Shanghai.
Zhang added that cost was a key factor, as energy-storage systems required lower energy density but higher safety within budget constraints, as even affluent countries in the Middle East would expect to control their costs.