Four-Pronged Approach to Drive High-Quality Development of New Energy Storage

Securities Daily Li Wenshan

As the “stabilizer” of the new energy system and the “ballast” of energy transition, the energy storage industry is at a critical stage from large-scale expansion to high-quality development. Currently, China’s new energy storage installations continue to rise, application scenarios are constantly expanding, and it has become an important support for cultivating new productive forces and advancing the “dual carbon” goals.

However, there are still many pain points in industry development, such as unclear business models, uneven technological innovation, safety management needs improvement, and an underdeveloped market mechanism. Based on national energy strategic deployment, aligned with policy guidance and industry realities, the energy storage industry needs to focus on technological innovation, market improvement, safety foundation, and ecological collaboration to break through development bottlenecks.

The author believes that promoting high-quality development of the energy storage industry can be approached from the following four aspects:

First, make technological innovation the core engine of development. Currently, China’s energy storage industry faces issues such as homogeneous technical routes, high dependence on core materials, and immature long-duration storage technologies, which are difficult to fully meet the needs of the new energy system. This requires the industry to adhere to innovation-driven development, focus on high safety, low cost, long lifespan, and large capacity market demands, and build a diverse, autonomous, and controllable technological system.

On one hand, concentrate efforts on overcoming key core technologies. Integrate innovation resources from enterprises, universities, and research institutes to jointly establish national innovation platforms and key laboratories, and carry out industry-university-research collaborative breakthroughs. On the other hand, promote deep integration of technology and industry. Accelerate digital and intelligent upgrades of energy storage equipment, promote smart manufacturing technologies, and improve product consistency and reliability. Focus on new scenarios such as “computing and electricity collaboration” and “zero-carbon parks,” and develop customized energy storage systems suitable for these applications to ensure that technological innovation precisely meets market demands.

Second, improve market mechanisms to support industry development. For a long time, issues such as single revenue models and low marketization have restricted healthy industry cycles. In the future, sustainable development of the energy storage industry depends on the improvement of market-based trading and operational mechanisms, which will further stimulate market主体活力.

It is worth noting that with the full implementation of capacity electricity price policies, the independent capacity compensation standards on the grid side have been clarified. Prices will be scientifically determined based on discharge duration, peak capacity, and other factors, and the three major revenue channels—electricity sales, ancillary services, and capacity payments—are expected to be fully connected.

Third, prioritize safety as the bottom line to build a solid foundation for industry development. As the scale of energy storage installations rapidly expands, the pressure to prevent safety risks in electrochemical storage continues to increase. Issues such as inconsistent standards, incomplete supervision, and lack of full lifecycle management are becoming more prominent. It is essential to adhere to the principle of safety first and prevention foremost, and establish a comprehensive safety management system covering the entire chain and all aspects.

Fourth, promote ecological collaboration to expand industry development space. High-quality development of the energy storage industry must integrate into the overall energy transition, with energy storage deeply collaborating with new energy sources, power grids, and application scenarios.

It is expected that, with deep coordination among source, grid, load, and storage, a series of integrated wind, solar, and storage bases and demonstration projects focusing on zero-carbon parks, data centers, rural revitalization, and island power supply will emerge.