The New Era of Energy Storage Enters Its Golden Age

China Energy News | The New Era of Energy Storage Enters Its Golden Age

The 15th Five-Year Plan has already begun, and the golden age of energy storage industry is surging. New energy storage has become one of the six emerging pillar industries in China, is the new quality productivity of energy transformation, and is also the key support of the global artificial intelligence and computing power model energy base. Looking into the future, the energy storage industry will fully enter a new stage of high-quality development with "value reconstruction, scene innovation, and global win-win" as the core.

From scale surge to full scene penetration

During the 14th Five-Year Plan period, the development speed and scale of energy storage in China far exceeded expectations. Liu Deshun, chief engineer of the National Energy Administration and director of the Department of Energy Conservation and Science and Technology Equipment, said that by the end of 2025, the installed capacity of new energy storage completed and put into operation in China had reached 136 million kilowatts, up 84 percent from the end of 2024 and more than 40 times compared with the end of the 13th Five-Year Plan, ranking first in the world. At the same time, the average time of energy storage has increased to 2.58 hours. During the peak summer of 2025, the maximum adjustable power of new energy storage in the state grid operating area will exceed 64 million kilowatts, and the real-time maximum discharge power will exceed 44 million kilowatts. The equivalent utilization hours of new energy storage in China will reach 1195 hours, nearly 300 hours higher than that in 2024.

Energy storage has actually shifted from "demonstration running" to "main support"

Energy storage technology route has formed a hundred flowers bloom, multi-echelon advance pattern. Chen Haisheng pointed out that according to the industrial data in 2025, the first echelon of pumped storage and lithium batteries have been realized in large-scale application; the second echelon of compressed air, flow batteries, lead storage and heat storage are in the application stage, such as several 300000 kW compressed air and 100000 kW flow battery projects have been put into operation; the third echelon of sodium ion, flywheel and ultracapacitors are transforming from demonstration to application. China's energy storage technology from "following running" to "parallel running", has now "led".

Cui Jian, president of Xiamen Kehua Energy Technology Co., LTD., pointed out that under the background of landscape new energy gradually becoming the main body of the new power system, energy storage has changed from an optional "supporting role" to a "rigid need" to ensure the safe and stable operation of the power grid. Energy storage is supporting from the large base to the full scene coverage of centralized and distributed combination, forming the multi-integration mode of "optical storage", "energy storage + hydrogen production", "mining micro grid" and "island micro grid", completely breaking the internal boundary of the power system.

Today, energy storage has accelerated to independent energy storage power station, distributed light storage zero carbon park, intelligent computing center, low altitude economic supporting facilities, port and shore power and other new business forms. In the view of Xu Qingqing, vice president and president of Energy Storage Division of Sunshine Power Supply Co., LTD., energy storage has fully entered the era of "S + energy storage", and is upgrading from a single energy storage equipment to a system-level energy hub.

Entering the deep water zone, it is urgent to break the core challenges

Despite its remarkable achievements, the energy storage industry must face and address a series of industry pain points and challenges to continue to move forward.

First of all, the market mechanism and project management norms of the energy storage industry still need to be improved. The latest data released by Zhongguancun Energy Storage Industry Technology Alliance reflects the concerns of the industry. In 2025, the EPC construction cost of 2-hour energy storage system fell to 1043.82 yuan / KWH, a decrease of 13% year on year, and the price showed a downward trend. In the case of "price reduction internal volume", if the lack of mature market mechanism support, the economy of energy storage projects will face a severe test.

How the energy storage is profitable is the core question

Xu Qingqing analysis,

The size of the power market in different regions varies greatly,

It is necessary to accelerate the transformation from a single energy storage equipment to a system-level energy hub, and build a diversified profit model with "capacity and electricity price guarantee, spot arbitrage as elasticity, and auxiliary services as value-added".

Second, the energy storage industry faces a safety bottom line and technology

Safety of energy storage systems

A double test of maturity.

Sex is always the sword of Damocles hanging over the industry.

Chen Haisheng stressed that safety is still energy storage hair

The country pays more attention to integrity

The focus of the exhibition process, the safety supervision of the chain.

In the view of the industry, how to ensure that energy storage does not have fire and other safety accidents in large-scale and high-density integrated applications is still the threshold that the industry must cross.

Thirdly, the energy storage industry is also facing the challenges of supply chain remodeling and globalization barriers. Shi Yubo, president of China Energy Research Society, reminded that the current global energy storage supply chain is shifting from pursuing global efficiency to pursuing regional security. The accelerated trend of policy-driven enterprise localization and multi-polarization of supply chain has put forward higher requirements for Chinese energy storage enterprises' ability to go overseas, overseas localization operation ability and the ability to deal with international technical barriers.

Energy storage presents the value reconstruction of the whole life cycle

Looking ahead to the next five to 10 years, energy storage will no longer just a country

"Accessories" for electric power systems,

Industry recognition

The core of energy strategy and green development. For, the future of energy storage development will present the full life cycle

Al enables to reshape the system form and storage

Value reconstruction,

Can accelerate the ecological trends such as the sea.

Chen Haisheng believes that energy storage will enter a new stage of value restructuring, and from "key support" to "core pillar" strategy jump. This means that the future evaluation of energy storage depends not only on the cost of the equipment, but also on the provision of electrical energy, capacity and auxiliary energy for the system during the whole cycle of planning, construction, operation and decommissioning

Green electricity environmental value and other multi-dimensional comprehensive support services and joint contribution.

As the penetration rate of new energy approaches the limit, the traditional "grid type" energy storage will not be able to meet the demand, and the grid type and long-term energy storage will rise. Cui Jian pointed out that the network construction technology gives the ability of independent construction and system support of energy storage voltage frequency, which can solve the balance problem of multiple days or even across the seasons, transforming it from a single function equipment to a system-level asset integrating regulation, control, stability and transaction.

Chen Haisheng, in particular, he mentioned that "Al + energy storage" is becoming a hot spot in current technology research and development. In the future, the use of Al scheduling energy storage will maximize the value of the whole life cycle. In addition, with the implementation of the capacity compensation mechanism, the initial commercialization of long-term energy storage such as flow batteries and compressed air is coming, and it is expected that the average cumulative installed capacity will increase from 2.58 hours to 3.47 hours by 2030. In particular, the proportion of independent energy storage has increased to 61%, and will become an important subject in the future to reconstruct the core capabilities of the power system.

What deserves more attention is the need of Al

Artificial intelligence data center scenario

Seek the outbreak, Chen Haisheng judgment

Energy storage projects are accelerating the layout.

Broken: " AI data center energy storage will be calculated

"High energy consumption, high

Core support for force infrastructure. Reliable power demand will open up a trillion-level blue ocean market for energy storage.

Chen Haisheng predicted that by 2030, China's cumulative installed capacity of energy storage is expected to reach more than 370 million kilowatts. This huge domestic base will provide the most solid backing for China's energy storage technology to go to the world.

Liu Deshun said,

The National Energy Administration will add in all aspects

We will strengthen international exchanges and support Chinese enterprises in going global. In the future, Chinese energy storage enterprises will go overseas from pure

standard

"Product export" is upgraded to "technology output, docking, localized production and service" ecological grade ° ants

From the "14th Five-year Plan" to the value remodeling of the "15th Five-Year Plan", China's energy storage industry is experiencing a great leap from quantitative change to qualitative change.2

In 2026, going to the world

Year is the first year of energy storage in China.