The key to the industrialization of the energy storage market lies in technological innovation.

The key to the industrialization of the energy storage market lies in technological innovation.

In recent years, energy storage, especially electrochemical energy storage, has grown from a "newborn" in the energy industry to a hot "new favorite". From promoting the consumption of renewable energy to frequency regulation and peak shaving, to new energy vehicle power batteries, energy storage has been rapidly expanding its market share. The reporter learned from the first National High level Symposium on Energy Storage Technology and Comprehensive Energy Services held recently that the multiple values of energy storage have initially emerged and have broad market potential, but still face challenges in terms of safety, and a solid foundation in technology is needed in the future.

Has trillion yuan market potential
"In 2017, the issuance of the Guiding Opinions on Promoting the Development of Energy Storage Technology and Industry marked the arrival of the spring of energy storage in China. In 2018, energy storage projects around the world, including China, developed rapidly. In the last five years, the cost of photovoltaic and wind power generation has declined rapidly, and promoting the consumption of renewable energy has brought opportunities for energy storage; the development of new energy vehicles has led to the decline of power battery costs, making energy storage begin to show advantages in areas that were not competitive, and the multiple values of energy storage are gradually reflected." Chen Yongchong, head of the Energy Storage Research Group of the Institute of Electrical Engineering of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, introduced that the true spring of energy storage has come.

It is understood that according to the principle of energy storage, energy storage technology can be divided into four categories: physical energy storage, electrochemical energy storage, hydrogen energy storage, and thermal/cold energy storage. As of now, various energy storage technologies have entered the demonstration or commercial application stage worldwide and demonstrated advantages in their application.

Among them, electrochemical energy storage is a "hot commodity" in energy storage and is highly regarded by the industry. State Grid Corporation of China and China Southern Power Grid have recently released their respective "Guiding Opinions on Promoting the Development of Electrochemical Energy Storage", listing electrochemical energy storage as a key development focus. According to Liu Yong, Secretary General of the Energy Storage Application Branch of the China Chemical and Physical Power Industry Association, in 2018, the installed capacity of electrochemical energy storage in China grew rapidly, with an additional 613MW of installed capacity. The scale of electrochemical energy storage projects under construction and planning that have been announced is about 2.5GW.

From the growth situation in 2018 and the current scale of projects under construction, planned, and already tendered, it is expected that energy storage will continue to maintain a rapid growth momentum in 2019, and there should be no problem with new energy storage projects exceeding 1GW in scale. Lin Yi, Vice President and General Manager of the New Energy Division of Kehua Hengsheng Co., Ltd., analyzed.

The rapidly growing scale will undoubtedly bring a larger market share and attract more capital investment. It is predicted that the cumulative installed capacity of electrochemical energy storage in China may reach 24 GW by 2025. Considering that lithium-ion batteries, especially lithium iron phosphate batteries, are likely to account for a high proportion, based on the average power cost of existing lithium iron phosphate batteries of 1200-2600 yuan/kW, the market share of electrochemical energy storage in China may enter the level of billions of yuan by 2025. With the continuous deepening application of energy storage technology in segmented markets such as power generation, grid, power supply, user, backup power, home energy storage market, comprehensive energy services, intelligent transportation, etc., energy storage has the potential to expand into trillion yuan level markets in the future.