From January to February 2022, China's lithium-ion battery industry maintained a rapid growth trend, according to enterprise information announcements and research institutions' estimates, the total domestic lithium battery output exceeds 82GWh. In the lithium-ion battery segment, the output of batteries for energy storage exceeds 9GWh, and the installed capacity of batteries for EVs is about 30GWh. The output of cathode materials, anode materials, separators, and electrolytes reached 235,000 tons, 140,000 tons, 1.75 billion square meters, and 105,000 tons respectively. For the raw materials used in lithium batteries, the output of Li2CO3 and LiOH reached 37,000 tons and 29,000 tons respectively, and the market price was running at a high level and continued to rise. At the end of February, the price exceeded 480,000 yuan/ton and 440,000 yuan/ton respectively.
NDRC and the National Energy Administration of China Issued the Medium and Long Term Development Plan for Hydrogen Industry (2021-2035)
On March 23, the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) and the National Energy Administration of China Issued the Medium and Long Term Development Plan for Hydrogen Industry (2021-2035) to carry out demonstration applications in the field of energy storage. According to the plan, hydrogen has the advantages of a long cycle and large storage capacity, and hydrogen storage will be demonstrated in scenarios such as renewable energy uptake and peak regulation in the grid. China will explore the new mode for the application of "energy generation by wind and solar + energy storage by hydrogen", and gradually build an integrated energy storage system of pumped hydro storage, electrochemical storage, hydrogen storage, etc. And China will explore the synergistic optimization potential of hydrogen in different energy networks and promote the connectivity of electricity, heat, fuels, and other forms of energy resources.
NDRC and the National Energy Administration of China Issued the New Energy Storage Development Plan During "14th Five-Year Plan" Period
On March 21, the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) and the National Energy Administration of China issued the New Energy Storage Development Plan During China’s "14th Five-Year Plan" Period. The plan specified development goals for new energy storage in China, by 2025, new energy storage technologies will step into a large-scale development period and meet the conditions for large-scale commercial applications. The performance of electrochemical energy storage technology will be further improved, and the system cost will be reduced by more than 30%. The new energy storage technology based on conventional power plants and compressed air energy storage technology (CAES) with a scale of hundreds of megawatts will realize engineering applications. Mechanical energy storage technologies such as megawatt-scale flywheel energy storage will gradually become mature, breakthroughs will be made in long-duration energy storage technologies such as hydrogen storage and thermal (cold) storage. By 2030, new energy storage technologies will develop in a market-oriented way.
The first batch of independent energy storage facilities in Shandong participates in electricity spot trading
On February 25, Shandong Power Exchange Center announced the information of the three independent energy storage facilities registered in February (as of February 21). As of February 25, the registration procedures for the batch of independent energy storage facilities in the Shandong Power Exchange Center have taken effect. The first batch of three independent energy storage stations include Tengyuan Energy Storage Station of China Huadian Corporation, Haiyang Energy Storage Station of State Power Investment Corporation, and Qingyun Energy Storage Station of China Three Gorges Corporation. At present, the three energy storage stations have become the first batch in the country to participate in the electricity spot market.
China Southern Power Grid issued the "14th Five-Year" Development Plan for Emerging Businesses
The "14th Five-Year" Development Plan for Emerging Businesses proposes that during the "14th Five-Year Plan" period, in promoting the realization of the carbon peaking and carbon neutrality goals and building a new power system based on new energy resources, the development of emerging businesses will usher in an important period of strategizing, upgrading and reforming. Taking energy storage sector as an example, during the "14th Five-Year Plan" period, the company will promote the construction of pumped storage hydropower stations orderly and explore to promote the construction and operation of new energy storage technologies. The installed capacity of peak and frequency regulation power supply will exceed 15 GW, and the scale of new energy storage technologies will reach 2GW.
Baoan Xin: Strive to increase electrochemical energy storage from 3 GW to 100 GW in 2030
On February 23, "People's Daily" published an article signed by Baoan Xin, CEO of State Grid Corporation of China. The article pointed out that in order to meet the requirements of developing energy storage and improve the adjustment capacity of the power system, we should strengthen the construction of well-developed pumped storage hydropower stations, actively support the application of new energy storage technologies, and strive to increase the installed capacity of pumped storage hydropower stations from the current 26.3 GW to 100GW, and to increase the installed capacity of the electrochemical storage stations from 3 GW to 100 GW in 2030.
South China Energy Regulatory Office issued the “Notice on Strengthening the Supervision of the Development and Application of New Energy Storage Technologies”
On February 28, the notice required the energy authorities of Guangdong, Guangxi, and Hainan provinces to speed up the issuance of development plans for new energy storage technologies in these regions, support research on various energy storage technologies and control technologies, and fully consider the construction of energy storage demonstration projects with large-capacity, long-duration and comprehensive application, support new energy storage technologies to participate in the medium and long-term electricity market, spot market and ancillary service market as an independent market entity. Authorities should improve the compensation system of power supply side energy storage, support conventional power sources such as thermal power and new energy storage technologies to participate in auxiliary services together such as peak regulation, frequency regulation and reserve dispatch, improve the subsidies for energy storage allocated to renewable energy sources, and support grid-side energy storage stations to expand business models such as "shared energy storage" mode or direct participation in the electricity market, and support user-side energy storage to combine with high-load industrial demands, 5G base stations, charging networks, industrial parks and other load and other distribute power generators to form direct-controlled dispatchable “virtual power plants” or “integrated energy operators” to participate in electricity markets.
Local Government of Qinghai Province issued the “14th Five-Year Plan for Energy Development of Qinghai”
On February 28, the “14th Five-Year Plan for Energy Development of Qinghai” was issued which pointed out the key tasks of energy development, including actively developing applications of various new energy storage technologies such as electrochemical energy storage and compressed air energy storage. Relying on the resource advantages of salt lakes in Qinghai, it will actively promote the "new energy + energy storage" model, carry out pilot projects for compressed air energy storage and flywheel energy storage, explore the establishment of a shared energy storage operation mode, and promote the demonstration construction of GW-scale electrochemical energy storage on the supply-side, grid-side and user-side, and improve the short-term energy storage dispatch capacity of the power system. By 2025, 6 GW new energy storage such as electrochemical energy storage will be deployed.
Suzhou Industrial Park Administrative Committee issued "Several Measures for Further Promoting Distributed Photovoltaic Development in Suzhou Industrial Park"
According to the news on March 1, the document pointed out that the overall goal is to bring about an average annual increase of 70 MW of photovoltaic during the 14th Five-Year Plan period, support photovoltaic projects to deploy energy storage facilities. For energy storage projects connected to the grid and connected to the carbon peaking platform in the park after January 1, 2022, the project investor will be subsidized in 3-year term by 0.3 yuan/kWh according to its discharge contribution. Financial support will be increased, and there will have loan supports for distributed photovoltaic and energy storage projects, and eligible projects be supported by the special risk compensation “green intelligent manufacturing loan”.
Xinjiang Development and Reform Commission issued the "Guidelines for the Construction of Large-scale Wind Power and Photovoltaic Bases in the Autonomous Region (Version 1.0)"
On March 4th, in order to encourage all kinds of investors to make full use of desert areas to promote the construction of wind generation, photovoltaic generation and other new energy projects and achieve convenient, efficient service and effective management, Xinjiang Development and Reform Commission, formulated this guideline, defined 7 promotion roadmaps for the construction of new energy projects. Among these roadmaps, the energy storage promotion roadmap requires that enterprises deployed a duration of more than 4 hours energy storage are allowed to build wind and photovoltaic generation projects with a capacity of 4 times of energy storage, encourage photovoltaic generation and solar thermal generation to construct on a scale of 9:1, encourage wind farms that have been connected to the grid for more than 15 years to carry out renovating, upgrading and decommissioning plans which the new construction scale should be four times of scale of energy storage with more than 4 hours duration, and promote the improvement of quality, efficiency of the wind power industry .
The Ministry of Science and Technology of China issued a draft for the 2022 application guidelines for the key project of "Energy Storage and Smart Grid Technology"
The application guidelines are intended to focus on 7 directions and 26 guidance tasks: medium-duration and long-duration energy storage technology, short-duration and high-frequency energy storage technology, ultra-long-duration energy storage technology, active grid-support technology from high-penetration renewable energy, safe and efficient operation technology for ultra-large-scale AC-DC hybrid power grid, supply-demand interaction and energy efficiency enhancement technology for diversified energy consumers, fundamental grid-support technology. It involves nine energy storage sub-tasks, including manganese-based energy storage lithium-ion batteries with low-cost and long-life, organic energy storage batteries, aqueous metal-ion energy storage batteries, 100 MWh-scale sodium-ion battery energy storage technology, high-power lithium-ion batteries, high-power dual-ion energy storage batteries, 100MW advanced compressed air energy storage technology, new generation flow redox batteries, molten salt heat storage technology with wide liquid range and high temperature.
NDRC: Significance Progress Has Been Made in "Allowing for More Competition in Electricity Generation, Sales and Consumption" and Establishing A Market-based Electricity Price Mechanism
On October 12, the National Development and Reform Commission issued the "Notice on Further Deepening the Market-oriented Reform of Coal-fired Power Generation On-grid Electricity Prices". China will keep stable residential and agricultural electricity prices while orderly liberalizing the on-grid electricity prices for all coal-fired power generation. Expand the range of fluctuations in market transaction electricity prices, and encourage industrial and commercial users to enter the market. This reform has made important progress in "liberating the two ends", namely, the development of power-side on-grid tariffs and user-side sales tariffs, marking another important step in the reform of the electricity market.
The core of the reform is to truly establish a market-based electricity price mechanism that "can fall and rise flexibly". From the current point of view, the reform is conducive to further straightening out the relationship between "coal power" and ensuring the safe and stable supply of electricity; in the long run, it will accelerate the development of medium and long-term power transactions, the spot market and the auxiliary service market, and promote the high-quality development of the power industry. Supporting the construction of a new power system, serving the green and low-carbon transformation of energy, and will play an important role in accelerating the reform of power generation and consumption plans and the reform of the power sales side system.