China’s domestic energy storage sector has seen growth of nearly 300% so far this year— vastly outstripping all capacity brought on line in 2017, according to a new study.
Newly operational energy storage capacity has already achieved growth to date in 2018 that is “281% higher than that of 2017 in its entirety”, the China Energy Storage Alliance (CNESA) said.
And if all new domestic storage capacity starts up by the end of this year as planned, it will make 2018 “one of the most significant years yet for the industry”, said CNESA, citing domestic market tracking data.
CNESA said the first half of 2018 saw the announcement of new energy storage project construction in Jiangsu, Henan, Qinghai, and Guangdong provinces. “These projects varied in scale from tens of megawatts to hundreds, and altogether totalled 340.5MW— including those projects planned, under construction and already operational.
“This combined new capacity nearly equalled the country’s total accumulated operational capacity of 389.4MW at the end of 2017,” said the CNESA.
In one initiative cited by the CNESA, the State Grid Jiangsu Energy Service Company and Shandong Electric launched plans last May to build large-scale grid-side and behind-the-meter storage projects in eastern Zhenjiang.
“The projects capitalised on energy storage’s short construction period, flexible deployment, rapid response time, and other advantages to effectively reduce pressure on the grid,” the CNESA said.
“Grid-side projects included eight energy storage power stations equipped with lithium iron phosphate batteries at a total scale of 101MW/202MWh. Providers include ZTT Energy Storage, CLOU, eTrust, and other domestic companies.”
Chinese battery maker Narada largely supplied lead-carbon batteries for behind-the-meter storage “at a total capacity exceeding 500MWh”, according to the CNESA.
Last year, China’s national government announced plans to support a “transformation” of its energy storage industry over the next decade— focusing on the development of an array of technologies including a pilot high performance lead-carbon capacitor battery system.
