The 8th Western Energy Storage Forum was held in Xi'an, Shaanxi Province

Time：2023-08-09 Hit：

On August 2-3, the 8th Energy Storage Western Forum was held in Xi'an, Shaanxi. Chen Haisheng, Chairman of the Zhongguancun Energy Storage Industry Technology Alliance and Chairman of the Energy Storage Special Committee of the China Energy Research Association, stated in the report "Trends in Energy Storage Technology and Industry Development and CNESADatalink2023 Energy Storage Data for the First Half of the Year": "From January to June this year, Chinese enterprises produced over 75.0 GWh of energy storage batteries (excluding backup batteries for base stations/data centers) in the global market, which is more than twice that of the same period last year, and the export proportion exceeded 55%. ”

In addition to energy storage batteries, the scale of installed power storage capacity and the number of new energy storage projects are also showing a rapid growth trend. According to the report, as of the first half of this year, the cumulative installed capacity of China's power energy storage has exceeded 70.2 GW, a year-on-year increase of 44%. Among them, the cumulative installed capacity of pumped storage is 48.5GW, the cumulative installed capacity of new energy storage has exceeded 20GW, and the newly added operational scale exceeds the entire year of last year.

Among the widely used energy storage technologies in the current market, pumped storage occupies the main market share, "Qu Fang, an investment advisor at Wanlian Securities, said in an interview with Securities Daily. However, considering that pumped storage is limited by geographical location, construction scale, and user entities, more convenient chemical energy storage equipment will be adopted for new energy storage in the future. Such as hydrogen batteries, flow batteries, sodium ion batteries, and even supercapacitors currently in the laboratory stage. This also means that the proportion of pumped storage energy will continue to decline, and the development of new energy storage will further accelerate

Chen Haisheng introduced that in the first half of this year, China's new energy storage market was unprecedentedly active, with more than twice the number of new energy storage projects compared to the same period last year, and the new scale reached 70% of the total for the whole year last year. The number of hundred megawatt level projects has increased significantly, with more than 40 put into operation, twice the level of the whole year last year. The number of planned and under construction projects has exceeded the level of the whole year last year.

The popularity of the energy storage industry is also reflected in the capital market. The report points out that energy storage companies are becoming increasingly active in the capital market and are experiencing a wave of IPOs. Since the beginning of this year, multiple energy storage financing events have involved amounts of over 100 million yuan, with a total financing amount of 73.4 billion yuan in the first half of the year (only specific disclosed financing events are included). Several industrial chain enterprises have entered or completed the listing process in the first half of the year.

However, many industry insiders have also put forward their own "cold thinking" about the current popularity of the energy storage industry.

Xu Ziming, Director of the Energy Efficiency and Storage Department of the Science and Technology Equipment Department of the National Energy Administration, stated at this forum that while new energy storage is rapidly developing, it also faces many challenges. There is an urgent need to accelerate diversified technological progress and reduce costs at all levels of raw materials, equipment, and systems.

Shi Yubo, Chairman of the China Energy Research Association, also stated at the forum that while the energy storage industry is developing rapidly, there are still many problems in the coordinated development of new energy and energy storage. There is a significant gap between the planned new energy storage and the actual installed capacity, making it difficult to fully utilize the regulatory role of the energy storage system. The market mechanism is not sound, and the actual utilization rate of new energy distribution and storage is not high.

From the perspective of enterprises, in the context of industry warming, it is also necessary to remain calm, "Qu Fang said. Currently, there are as many as 288 energy storage listed companies in the A-share market, and there are still companies crossing over into the energy storage field. But if a company does not have mature technology, resources, and R&D teams in the field of energy storage, it is not recommended to blindly cross boundaries. Currently, energy storage is still in the development stage, with large technological investment and long effective cycles, so it is difficult to achieve practical results in the short term

Source: Securities Daily Author: Yin Gaofeng