This year, the new installed capacity of new energy storage will increase by two times year-on-year

"As of the end of the third quarter of this year, China's cumulative installed capacity of new energy storage reached 25.3 GW/53.4 GWh, a year-on-year increase of more than 260%, and the newly installed capacity was 12.3 GW/25.5 GWh, a year-on-year increase of more than 920%. It is expected that 49.6 GWh of new capacity will be installed by the end of this year, about three times that of last year. ”

On November 23, at the energy storage special forum of the 2023 annual meeting of the China Energy Research Society, Shi Yubo, chairman of the China Energy Research Society, said.

GW is the unit of power, which represents the maximum instantaneous power of the energy storage system, and GWh is the unit of energy, which represents the capacity of the energy storage battery.

In 2022, 6.9 GW/15.3 GWh of new energy storage capacity was added in China, and the cumulative installed capacity exceeded 10 GW for the first time, reaching 13.1 GW/27.1 GWh.

Shi Yubo said that energy storage, as a national strategic emerging industry, has become a key supporting technology for building a new power system and achieving the goal of carbon neutrality and carbon peaking. The innovative and large-scale layout and application of energy storage technology will have a profound impact on China's energy transition, power grid pattern and power supply structure.

Chen Haisheng, chairman of the Zhongguancun Energy Storage Industry Technology Alliance (CNESA), also predicted at the meeting that the new installed capacity of new energy storage this year will reach 15-20 GW, more than the sum of the last decade, and the cumulative installed capacity will be between 23-31 GW, which is generally in line with expectations.

In recent years, the development of new energy has become the focus of attention in the energy field of various countries. Zhang Yunzhou, former president of the State Grid Energy Research Institute, said at the meeting that the development of new energy presents four characteristics: first, the proportion of photovoltaic installed capacity is high;

Third, distributed energy resources are facing bottlenecks, and the carrying capacity of distribution networks is limited; fourth, the utilization rate of new energy remains at a high level, but at the same time, it has entered a bottleneck period, and some provinces and regions with high penetration rate have begun to decline.

"Large-scale renewable energy access will bring a series of new challenges to the power system, so energy storage is a necessary component of building a new power system. Zhang Yuanzhou said.

Zhang Yuanzhou believes that from the perspective of future development, energy storage has a wide range of application scenarios and penetrates into all aspects of the power system, so it is necessary to stand in the perspective of adapting to the development of the new power system and explore the real value space of energy storage in the entire industry ecological chain. At the same time, he stressed that it is necessary to pay attention to the functional positioning and differences between pumped storage and new energy storage.

New energy storage refers to energy storage technologies other than pumped storage, which mainly export electricity. At present, new energy storage is the focus of attention of the entire energy storage sector.

According to the data of Zhongguancun Energy Storage Industry Technology Alliance, as of the end of September, the cumulative installed capacity of energy storage was 75.2 GW, an increase of 50% year-on-year, of which the new energy storage dominated by lithium batteries increased by about 2.8 times year-on-year, accounting for more than 30%, and the proportion of pumped storage continued to decline.

Chen Haisheng said that from the perspective of energy storage technology, China has become the most active area in the world for basic research technology demonstration and application demonstration, which can be divided into four echelons. The first is pumped hydro storage, which is the most mature and has the most applications and the most installed capacity.

The second echelon is lithium batteries, compressed air, liquid flow, lead storage and heat storage technology, etc., which have achieved more than 100 megawatts of demonstration and application, of which lithium batteries have the fastest development and may jump to the position between the first echelon and the second echelon.

The third echelon is sodium ion, flywheel and other technologies, which have achieved demonstration applications above the megawatt level and are developing rapidly. Among them, sodium ions have received most attention, and the fourth echelon is liquid metal ion aqueous batteries that are being developed and demonstrated.

"Compared with domestic and foreign countries, most of China's energy storage technologies are close to the international advanced level. Chen Haisheng said.

With the large-scale growth of domestic energy storage systems, the bidding market is fiercely competitive.

As of the end of September this year, the bidding scale of domestic energy storage systems reached 15.7 GW/57.4 GWh, which was 2.8 times the system procurement volume of last year, and the centralized procurement volume exceeded 50%.

Combined with the decline in upstream raw material prices, the downward trend of energy storage bid-winning prices this year is obvious. According to Chen Haisheng, in the first three quarters of this year, the scalar volume of energy storage systems was nearly 40 GWh, and the average bidding price of energy storage systems fell below 1 yuan/Wh in September.

From January to September, the average bidding price of EPC and energy storage systems has been on a downward trend, among which, the average bidding price of energy storage systems has reached 0.99 yuan/Wh, down 35% year-on-year, down 8% month-on-month, down 34% compared with the beginning of this year, and the lowest winning bid price fell below 0.9 yuan/Wh.

At the same time, the price of energy storage cells was lower than 0.5 yuan/Wh, and the price of 0.5C energy storage system was lower than 0.7 yuan/Wh. C refers to the rate of battery charge and discharge capacity. 0.5C means that the energy storage battery can discharge the full power within 2 hours.

In recent months, "involution", "competition" and "excess" have become the main keywords in the energy storage industry, and pessimistic voices in the industry are continuous.

Zhu Gongshan, chairman of GCL Group, said at the previous Shanghai Energy Storage Exhibition that as of mid-2023, the actual production capacity of China's lithium battery power (energy storage) battery industry is nearly 1,900 GWh, and the nominal capacity utilization rate of the industry is less than half, and it is still declining. The energy storage industry is currently in a state of high involution, with the influx of capital and the cross-border entry of new players, which has led to a large-scale expansion of production, further aggravation of the risk of disorderly competition in the industry, homogenization and frequent price wars.

Zheng Hanbo, general manager of Envision Energy's energy storage division, also publicly said that 80% of energy storage system integrators may fall next year.

"The energy storage index is still in the adjustment period. Chen Haisheng said, but he is still optimistic about the future demand for energy storage. In addition, he expects that by the end of this year, the trend of China dominating the global battery supply chain will become more obvious, and battery production is expected to double, accounting for more than 50% of exports.