With the diversification of energy storage technologies, application scenarios are rapidly expanding beyond traditional power systems into emerging fields such as industrial manufacturing, data centers, and zero-carbon parks. However, these emerging applications have much lower tolerance for fire risks, presenting unprecedented challenges to the safe development of the energy storage industry. At this critical stage, the 6th Energy Storage Safety Forum, themed “AI Empowering Energy Storage Risk Management and Control, Safety Building a Sustainable Future”, aimed to build industry consensus, address key safety challenges, and promote the stable and sustainable growth of the energy storage sector.

On July 17, 2026, the 6th Energy Storage Safety Forum was successfully held in Hefei, Anhui Province. The event was organized by the China Energy Storage Alliance (CNESA), and co-organized by the National Energy Storage Technology Industry-Education Integration Innovation Platform of Tianjin University, the CNESA Energy Storage Safety Committee, and Gotion High-tech. The forum brought together government officials, industry leaders, academic experts, and research institutions to jointly explore pathways toward safer and more sustainable energy storage development.

The opening ceremony gathered representatives from government authorities, leading research institutions, and enterprises. Attendees included Wang Shijiang, Deputy Director of the Department of Electronic Information of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT); Xu Ziming, Deputy Director of the Electricity Safety Supervision Department of the National Energy Administration (NEA); Jiang Chenyue, Member of the Party Leadership Group and Deputy Director of the Anhui Provincial Department of Industry and Information Technology; Zeng Xiaoming, Member of the Party Leadership Group and Deputy Director of the Anhui Energy Bureau; Sun Jinhua, Academician of the European Academy of Sciences and Professor at the University of Science and Technology of China; Chen Zhongwei, Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada and the Canadian Academy of Engineering; Chen Haisheng, Director of the Institute of Engineering Thermophysics at the Chinese Academy of Sciences; Yang Quanhong, Chair Professor at Tianjin University; Zhuo Ping, Director of the Fourth Research Division of Tianjin Fire Research Institute under the Ministry of Emergency Management; Wang Qisui, Executive President of Gotion High-tech; and Yu Zhenhua, Executive Vice Chairman of CNESA.

The forum also received strong support from organizations and companies including the School of Energy and Power Engineering at Tianjin University, Sungrow, Envision Energy, Honeywell China, Xien Technology, Pengcheng Infinite, Benji Electric, Yangyi Technology, and Huachu Technology. The opening ceremony was hosted by Liu Wei, Secretary General of CNESA.

Opening Remarks: Balancing Energy Storage Safety and Development

In his opening speech, Wang Shijiang stated that energy storage is a key driver for achieving China’s dual-carbon goals. The country’s energy storage industry is currently developing rapidly, with strong momentum. In the first quarter of 2026, China’s energy storage lithium battery output reached 185GWh, representing year-on-year growth of more than 100%. Meanwhile, technological innovation continues to accelerate, with applications expanding across power systems, industrial sectors, and zero-carbon parks.

However, safety risks have become a major bottleneck restricting high-quality industry development. Wang emphasized that MIIT’s Department of Electronic Information will coordinate both development and safety, focusing on four key areas:

Strengthening top-level planning and guiding the industry’s transition from scale expansion toward quality improvement and enhanced safety;
Regulating market competition and fostering a healthy industrial ecosystem;
Establishing a strong safety foundation by accelerating the development of national standards, including safety grading evaluation standards for energy storage batteries;
Enhancing technological innovation to prevent and mitigate safety risks at the source.

He called for deeper collaboration across the industry to jointly promote safe, healthy, and sustainable development of energy storage.

Jiang Chenyue
**Deputy Director, Anhui Provincial Department of Industry and Information Technology**

Jiang Chenyue highlighted Anhui’s strong industrial growth, noting that the province’s industrial output value has increased from RMB 3.8 trillion at the beginning of the 14th Five-Year Plan period to RMB 5.5 trillion, with its national ranking rising from 12th to 6th place.

In the energy storage sector, Anhui has established a complete industrial chain covering materials, batteries, and systems. Multiple technology routes are developing in parallel, and the industry scale has grown sixfold since the beginning of the 14th Five-Year Plan period, surpassing RMB 1 trillion last year. Leading companies such as Gotion High-tech and Sungrow have emerged as globally competitive enterprises, with energy storage battery cells and system shipments ranking among the world’s leading levels.

Looking ahead to the 15th Five-Year Plan period, Anhui will prioritize new energy storage as a key sector within its “1188” modern industrial system. The province will further integrate industrial development with technological innovation, strengthen market players, accelerate commercialization of new technologies and products, and build an ecosystem integrating government, industry, academia, research, finance, services, and applications.

Chen Haisheng
**Chairman of CNESA; Director of the Institute of Engineering Thermophysics, Chinese Academy of Sciences**

Chen Haisheng stated that 2026 marks a critical year for China’s new energy storage industry as it transitions from large-scale expansion toward high-quality growth.

By the end of June 2026, China’s cumulative installed capacity of energy storage projects reached 237.2GW, representing year-on-year growth of 41.4%. Among this, new energy storage accounted for 168.2GW, exceeding 70% of total capacity. Newly installed capacity reached 21.64GW/58.20GWh, while storage duration continued to increase and technology pathways rapidly evolved.

Despite rapid industry expansion, safety challenges remain the most critical issue facing the sector. Chen emphasized that CNESA will continue strengthening international cooperation, building a global energy storage safety platform, developing comprehensive safety systems, and supporting the global transition toward green and low-carbon energy.

Emerging Insights: Tackling Energy Storage Safety Challenges Across the Entire Value Chain

A clear trend is emerging: energy storage safety innovation is moving beyond battery cell-level protection toward a comprehensive approach integrating battery innovation, system architecture, intelligent operation and maintenance, safety standards, and application scenarios.

Sun Jinhua
**Academician of the European Academy of Sciences; Professor, University of Science and Technology of China**

In his presentation titled “Fire Risks and Prevention Strategies for Energy Storage in Computing Power and Data Centers,” Sun Jinhua highlighted the rapid growth of electricity demand from artificial intelligence computing and data centers.

Electricity consumption by computing and data centers approached 200 billion kWh in 2025 and is expected to reach 526–700 billion kWh by 2030. With China requiring newly built data centers in national computing hubs to achieve at least 80% renewable electricity consumption, energy storage will become increasingly essential.

However, fire risks remain a major concern. Global energy storage fire probability is estimated at approximately 0.3%–0.4%, while data centers face higher potential losses due to concentrated assets and personnel, requiring much stricter safety standards.

Sun proposed three layers of safety protection:

Improving intrinsic battery safety through interdisciplinary research and AI technologies to reduce thermal runaway probability below 10⁻⁸;
Enhancing process safety through intelligent thermal management materials, fiber-optic in-situ monitoring, and integrated thermal management and early-warning technologies;
Optimizing firefighting solutions through technologies such as liquid nitrogen extinguishing and multiple-stage suppression.

He emphasized the need to develop intelligent safety management platforms integrating remote monitoring, predictive analysis, multi-level warnings, and dynamic response capabilities.

**Chen Zhongwei, Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada and the Canadian Academy of Engineering; Researcher and PhD Supervisor at the Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences.**

Chen Zhongwei delivered a keynote speech titled “Building an Intelligent Management System for the Full Life Cycle of Electrochemical Energy Storage.”

He identified five major challenges in the energy storage industry: design, manufacturing, management, operation and maintenance, and electricity market participation. AI-based full life-cycle management provides a key solution.

Since 2015, Chen’s team has focused on integrating electrochemistry and artificial intelligence, achieving breakthroughs in:

Building battery industrial databases covering design, manufacturing, management, and operation;
Developing AI-assisted battery design based on electrochemical simulation;
Creating electrochemistry-AI coupled models for battery health evaluation;
Establishing closed-loop manufacturing optimization through production data and performance feedback;
Applying AI algorithms and robotics for retired battery sorting and second-life utilization;
Developing high-precision algorithms for RUL, SOC, and SOH estimation.

Based on these technologies, the team developed the Energy Storage AI Intelligent Monitoring System, establishing a three-level health diagnosis framework covering cells, battery containers, and entire energy storage stations.

Yang Quanhong
**Chair Professor, Tianjin University**

Yang Quanhong discussed “Water Management in Intrinsically Safe Aqueous Zinc Batteries: Fundamental Principles and Solutions.”

He emphasized that future energy storage technologies must achieve high safety, low cost, and resource sustainability. Aqueous zinc batteries represent a promising pathway due to their intrinsic safety and resource availability.

However, commercialization faces challenges caused by water-related reactions, including hydrogen evolution, corrosion, dendrite growth, cathode structural degradation, and limited cycle life.

The key solution lies in precise “water management,” including:

Water reaction management;
Water demand management;
Water state management;
Advanced conversion-type cathode technologies.

Zhuo Ping
**Director, Fourth Research Division, Tianjin Fire Research Institute, Ministry of Emergency Management**

Zhuo Ping introduced China-led international standards research on energy storage fire safety.

She explained that energy storage fire scenarios should consider four major safety objectives:

Life safety;
Property protection;
Environmental protection;
Cultural heritage protection.

Fire scenarios should incorporate different application characteristics, ignition sources, fire types, firefighting systems, and human behaviors.

Zhang Peidao
**Solution Director, Energy Storage Business Division, Gotion High-tech**

Zhang Peidao shared industrial practices under the theme “Architectural Innovation of Energy Storage Systems in New Power Systems.”

He noted that energy storage faces challenges including efficiency improvement, safety risks, high availability requirements, and life-cycle cost optimization.

Gotion High-tech addresses these challenges through architectural innovation:

The Qianyuan Intelligent Energy Storage 2.0 grid-forming high-voltage cascade storage system directly connects to 6–35kV grids without transformers;
System efficiency exceeds 92%;
AI-based predictive maintenance improves operational efficiency by 50%;
Multi-dimensional sensing and fire protection systems create layered safety protection;
Modular design reduces land occupation by 38%.

The solutions have already been applied in projects including user-side storage in Jinzhai and grid-side storage in Lujiang.

Roundtable Discussion: AI Empowering Energy Storage Safety from Passive Protection to Active Intelligence

The roundtable focused on how AI can transform energy storage safety from passive prevention to proactive intelligence.

Hosted by Wang Qingsong, Researcher at the University of Science and Technology of China and Chairman of the CNESA Energy Storage Safety Committee, the discussion gathered experts from grid operators, equipment manufacturers, industrial software providers, sensor companies, and AI technology companies.

Participants agreed on three major conclusions:

The transition from passive protection to active intelligence is inevitable.
AI will not replace intrinsic battery safety, hardware protection, or human operation, but will serve as an enabling technology connecting sensing, simulation, and decision-making.
AI adoption should follow a gradual human-machine collaboration approach.
Challenges remain, including data silos, limited algorithm generalization, incomplete standards, and hardware adaptation issues.
Full industrial collaboration is essential.
Energy storage intelligent safety requires cooperation among grid operators, battery manufacturers, research institutions, software companies, and sensor providers.

Launch of the New Intelligent Safety Ecosystem for Energy Storage

During the opening ceremony, Gotion High-tech initiated the establishment of the New Energy Storage Digital Intelligence Safety Ecosystem, bringing together universities, research institutions, and industry leaders.

Representatives from organizations including Beijing University of Science and Technology, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei University of Technology, Gotion High-tech, Siemens Digital Industries Software, iFlytek, Tishen Technology, Inovance Technology, and CNESA participated in the launch ceremony.

Special Forums: Exploring the Future Path of Energy Storage Safety Technologies

Two parallel forums were held in the afternoon:

“Safety of Energy Storage Power Stations and Commercial & Industrial Storage Systems”

This forum focused on:

Implementation of safety standards;
Fire monitoring and early-warning technologies;
Fire risk assessment of large-scale lithium iron phosphate systems;
Immersion cooling technologies;
Full-chain safety solutions for sodium-ion batteries.

“AI and Energy Storage Safety”

This forum explored:

National-level energy storage operation data platforms;
Intelligent operation and maintenance technologies;
Big data platforms for power generation companies;
AI-driven life-cycle management of large-scale energy storage.

The 6th Energy Storage Safety Forum brought together government authorities, industry players, academic experts, and research institutions to explore the future of energy storage safety.

Participants agreed that safety is the foundation for high-quality energy storage development, and AI-driven technologies are accelerating the transformation from passive protection toward proactive intelligent safety management.

Looking ahead, only through collaboration across the entire value chain and continuous strengthening of safety foundations can the energy storage industry achieve sustainable growth and contribute Chinese solutions to the global green energy transition.