China’s optical storage market in 2023

On February 13, the National Energy Administration held a regular press conference in Beijing. Wang Dapeng, Deputy Director of the Department of New and Renewable Energy of the National Energy Administration, introduced that in 2022, the new installed capacity of wind and photovoltaic power generation in the country will exceed 120 million kilowatts, reaching 125 million kilowatts, breaking 100 million kilowatts for three consecutive years, and hitting a new record high

Liu Yafang, deputy director of the Department of Energy Conservation and Scientific and Technological Equipment of the National Energy Administration, said that by the end of 2022, the installed capacity of new energy storage projects in operation nationwide had reached 8.7 million kilowatts, with an average energy storage time of about 2.1 hours, an increase of more than 110% over the end of 2021

In recent years, under the dual-carbon goal, the leapfrog development of new energy such as wind power and solar power generation has accelerated, while the volatility and randomness of new energy have become the difficulties in ensuring the stable supply of electricity. The new energy allocation and storage has gradually become the mainstream, which has the functions of suppressing the fluctuation of new energy output power, improving the consumption of new energy, reducing the deviation of power generation plan, improving the security and stability of power grid operation, and easing transmission congestion

On April 21, 2021, the National Development and Reform Commission and the National Energy Administration issued the Guiding Opinions on Accelerating the Development of New Energy Storage and solicited opinions from the whole society. It clearly stipulated that the installed capacity of new energy storage will reach more than 30 million kilowatts by 2025. According to statistics, by the end of 2020, China has put into operation the cumulative installed capacity of electrochemical energy storage is 3269.2 megawatts, or 3.3 million kilowatts, according to the installation target proposed in the document, By 2025, the installed capacity of electrochemical energy storage in China will increase about 10 times

Today, with the rapid development of PV+energy storage, along with the policy and market support, how is the development status of the energy storage market? How about the operation of the energy storage power station that has been put into operation? Can it play its due role and value?

Up to 30% storage!

From optional to mandatory, the most stringent storage allocation order was issued

According to the statistics of the International Energy Network/Photovoltaic Headline (PV-2005), up to now, a total of 25 countries have issued policies to clarify the specific requirements for photovoltaic configuration and storage. In general, most regions require that the distribution and storage scale of photovoltaic power stations be between 5% and 30% of the installed capacity, the configuration time is mainly 2-4 hours, and a few regions are 1 hour

Among them, Zaozhuang City of Shandong Province has clearly considered the development scale, load characteristics, photovoltaic utilization rate and other factors, and configured the energy storage facilities according to the installed capacity of 15% – 30% (adjusted according to the development stage) and the duration of 2-4 hours, or rented the shared energy storage facilities with the same capacity, which has become the ceiling of the current photovoltaic distribution and storage requirements. In addition, Shaanxi, Gansu, Henan and other places require the distribution and storage ratio to reach 20%

It is worth noting that Guizhou issued a document to clarify that new energy projects should meet the requirements of two-hour operation by building or purchasing energy storage at a rate not less than 10% of the installed capacity of new energy (the linkage ratio can be adjusted dynamically according to the actual situation) to meet the peak shaving demand; For new energy projects without energy storage, grid connection will not be considered temporarily, which can be regarded as the most stringent allocation and storage order

Energy storage equipment:

It is difficult to make profits and the enthusiasm of enterprises is generally not high

According to the statistics of the International Energy Network/Photovoltaic Headline (PV-2005), in 2022, a total of 83 wind and solar energy storage projects were signed/planned across the country, with a clear project scale of 191.553GW and a clear investment amount of 663.346 billion yuan

Among the defined project sizes, Inner Mongolia ranks first with 53.436GW, Gansu ranks second with 47.307GW, and Heilongjiang ranks third with 15.83GW. The project sizes of Guizhou, Shanxi, Xinjiang, Liaoning, Guangdong, Jiangsu, Yunnan, Guangxi, Hubei, Chongqing, Jiangxi, Shandong, and Anhui provinces all exceed 1GW

While the new energy allocation and energy storage power stations have mushroomed, the energy storage power stations that have been put into operation have fallen into a worrying situation. A large number of supporting energy storage projects are in the idle stage and gradually become an embarrassing situation

According to the “Research Report on the Operation of New Energy Distribution and Storage” issued by China Electricity Union, the cost of energy storage projects is mostly between 1500-3000 yuan/kWh. Due to different boundary conditions, the cost difference between projects is large. From the actual situation, the profitability of most energy storage projects is not high

This is inseparable from the constraints of reality. On the one hand, in terms of market access, the access conditions for energy storage power stations to participate in the electricity spot trading market have yet to be clarified, and the trading rules have yet to be improved. On the other hand, in terms of price mechanism, the establishment of an independent capacity pricing mechanism for energy storage power stations on the grid side has not been delayed, and the industry as a whole still lacks a complete business logic to guide social capital into the energy storage project. On the other hand, the cost of new energy storage is high and the efficiency is low, Lack of channels for channeling. According to relevant media reports, at present, the cost of new energy distribution and storage is borne by new energy development enterprises, which is not transmitted to the downstream. The cost of lithium ion batteries has increased, which has brought greater operating pressure to new energy enterprises and affected the investment decisions of new energy development enterprises. In addition, in the past two years, with the price of silicon material in the upstream of the photovoltaic industry chain rising, the price fluctuates greatly. For new energy enterprises with forced distribution and storage, Undoubtedly, the double factors have added to the burden of new energy power generation enterprises, so the enthusiasm of enterprises for new energy allocation and storage is generally low

Main constraints:

The problem of energy storage safety remains to be solved, and the operation and maintenance of the power station is difficult

In the past two years, new types of energy storage have flourished and become increasingly widely used, while the safety of energy storage has become increasingly serious. According to incomplete statistics, since 2018, more than 40 incidents of energy storage battery explosion and fire have occurred around the world, especially the explosion of Beijing Energy Storage Power Station on April 16, 2021, which caused the death of two firefighters, the injury of one firefighter, and the loss of contact of one employee in the power station, The current energy storage battery products are exposed to problems such as insufficient safety and reliability, weak guidance of relevant standards and specifications, inadequate implementation of safety management measures, and imperfect safety warning and emergency mechanism

In addition, under the pressure of high cost, some energy storage project builders have selected energy storage products with poor performance and low investment cost, which also increases the potential safety hazard. It can be said that the safety problem is the key factor affecting the healthy and stable development of new energy storage scale, which needs to be solved urgently

In terms of power station operation and maintenance, according to the report of China Electricity Union, the number of electrochemical cells is huge, and the scale of the number of single cells of the energy storage project has reached tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands of levels. In addition, the depreciation cost, loss of power conversion efficiency, battery capacity decay and other factors in operation will also greatly increase the life cycle cost of the entire energy storage power station, which is extremely difficult to maintain; The operation and maintenance of energy storage power stations involves electrical, chemical, control and other disciplines. At present, the operation and maintenance are extensive, and the professionalism of the operation and maintenance personnel needs to be improved

Opportunities and challenges always go hand in hand. How can we maximize the role of new energy distribution and storage and provide satisfactory answers for the realization of the dual-carbon goal?

The “Symposium on Energy Storage and New Energy Systems”, sponsored by the International Energy Network, Photovoltaic Headlines and Energy Storage Headlines, with the theme of “New Energy, New Systems and New Ecology”, will be held in Beijing on February 21. Meanwhile, the “7th China Photovoltaic Industry Forum” will be held in Beijing on February 22

The forum aims to build a value-based exchange platform for the photovoltaic industry. The forum invites leaders, experts and scholars of the National Development and Reform Commission, the Energy Administration, industry authoritative experts, industry associations, scientific research institutions, design institutes and other institutions, as well as power investment enterprises such as Huaneng, the National Energy Group, the National Power Investment Corporation, China Energy Conservation, Datang, Three Gorges, China Nuclear Power Corporation, China Guangdong Nuclear Power Corporation, the State Grid, China Southern Power Grid, and photovoltaic industry chain manufacturing enterprises, Professionals such as system integration enterprises and EPC enterprises should fully discuss and exchange hot topics such as photovoltaic industry policy, technology, industry development and trend in the context of the new power system, and help the industry end achieve integrated development

The “Symposium on Energy Storage and New Energy System” will discuss and exchange hot issues such as energy storage industry policy, technology, optical storage integration, etc., and enterprises such as National Energy Group, Trina Solar, Easter Group, Chint New Energy, Kehua Digital Energy, Baoguang Zhizhong, Aishiwei Storage, Shouhang New Energy will focus on the problems to be overcome in building a new ecosystem in the context of “dual carbon”, and achieve win-win and stable development of the new ecosystem, Provide new ideas and insights