China pumps out half of world’s energy storage research as US share declines
- An overview of China’s output in 2022 reports it has become the ‘most active’ country in the hunt for scalable storage options for renewables
- Contributions by US scientists accounted for 10.5 per cent of papers on the subject, report says
China accounted for half of the world’s research papers into energy storage technology published last year, an increase of 5 per cent on 2021, according to a report by a team of researchers from a number of Chinese universities and institutes.
In contrast, contributions by US scientists made up 10.5 per cent of papers on the subject in 2022, a 2 per cent fall on the previous year’s figures, the researchers said, in a paper published by the journal Energy Storage Science and Technology.
China had become the “most active country in the world in energy storage fields on all three aspects of fundamental study, technical research, integration and application”, the report said.
The researchers searched the Web of Science index using the keywords “energy storage” as part of the study, which gives an overview of China’s research advancements in the field.
China is already the world’s leader in renewable energy installations and is also leading in energy storage, with a capacity of 59.8 gigawatts at the end of 2022, according to the China Energy Storage Alliance.
Most of China’s electricity is derived from coal and energy storage is key to the country meeting its net zero goals. But a lack of large-scale methods of increasing capacity is hampering the total generation potential of existing renewable projects.