With the intensive introduction of new energy storage policies, the agency expects that in the future, as China's installed capacity of renewable energy increases, new energy storage will continue to develop rapidly. At the same time, with the acceleration of the development process of a large solar energy storage and new energy base, as an important supplement for solar energy projects, the market demand for new energy storage will gradually increase. A number of large energy storage power station projects have been signed and filed in various regions, and the development prospect of the new energy storage industry is broad.

By the end of 2022, the installed capacity of new energy storage projects that have been put into operation nationwide has reached 8.7 million kilowatts, with an average energy storage duration of about 2.1 hours, an increase of more than 110% compared to the end of 2021. At the same time, the diversified development trend of new energy storage technologies is obvious. The proportion of compressed air energy storage and liquid flow battery energy storage technology has significantly accelerated.

In January this year, Weijing Energy Storage Technology Co., Ltd., which focuses on the research and development of zinc iron liquid flow batteries and intelligent manufacturing of energy storage batteries, announced that its liquid flow battery stack intelligent production line has been officially opened in the "Super G Factory" in Yancheng, Jiangsu Province. This marks that Weijing Energy Storage has a mass production capacity of liquid flow batteries of over 100 megawatts, and a new force for energy storage is emerging.

The scale of new energy storage installations in China continues to grow rapidly

In recent years, the scale of new energy storage installations in China has continued to grow rapidly. To investigate the underlying reasons, Liu Yafang summarized five reasons.

The proposal of the carbon peak and carbon neutralization goal has created good opportunities for the rapid development of energy storage. In order to promote the realization of carbon peak and carbon neutrality goals, accelerating the construction of a new type of power system with a high proportion of renewable energy has become an important task for the development of China's energy industry. Wind power and photovoltaic power generation have intermittent, random, and volatile characteristics. In order to accept and absorb large-scale, high proportion, and highly volatile wind power and photovoltaic power generation in the existing power system, it is urgent to vigorously develop various types of energy storage to fill the gap in the flexibility and regulation capacity of the power system.



Thirdly, the advantages of new energy storage characteristics and traditional energy storage technologies complement each other, providing more options for the construction of new power systems. Compared to traditional pumped storage, the new type of energy storage has flexible location, short construction cycle, fast and flexible response, and diverse application scenarios. It can complement the advantages of pumped storage and solve the strong randomness and high volatility issues brought by new energy access to the power system in different scenarios.

Fourth, technological breakthroughs and economic improvements have further created favorable conditions for the rapid development of new energy storage. In recent years, the development speed of new national energy storage technologies has continuously improved, with significant improvements in energy density, power density, and cycle life. Safety prevention and control technologies and measures have been continuously improved. Lithium ion batteries for energy storage have formed a relatively complete industrial chain; Technologies such as liquid flow batteries, sodium ion batteries, compressed air energy storage, and flywheel energy storage have developed rapidly. The new energy storage industry as a whole is in the transition stage from research and development demonstration to the early stage of commercialization, and gradually forms an industrialization system.

Fifth, local governments and various market entities are highly motivated to develop and construct new energy storage, injecting vitality into the rapid development of new energy storage. Various investment entities such as energy companies and social capital are enthusiastic about investing in new energy storage projects, accelerating the construction and implementation of new energy storage projects.

It is understood that in October 2022, the Shanghai Municipal Government issued the "Action Plan for Shanghai to Create a New High in Future Industries, Develop and Strengthen Future Industrial Clusters", listing "Future Energy" as one of the five major industrial layouts in the future. In terms of new energy storage, the Plan lists a number of technologies, including liquid flow batteries. With the implementation of the "Plan", Weijing Energy Storage, a high-tech enterprise located in Yangpu District, Shanghai, has been continuously cultivating key technologies in the field of new energy storage and green energy, building demonstration projects such as shared energy storage and zero carbon buildings in the central urban area of Shanghai, and assisting the high-quality development of Shanghai's green and low-carbon industries.

It is reported that Weijing Energy Storage, which owns the world's first zinc iron liquid flow battery energy storage technology, has obtained 35 international patents and 18 domestic patents. As China accelerates the process of building a new type of power system, Weijing Energy Storage has actively engaged in industrialization and is committed to the large-scale application of zinc iron liquid flow battery energy storage products. In 2021, a "megawatt zinc iron liquid flow battery energy storage system" was constructed in Yugan, Jiangxi Province, using the complementary scenario of fishing and lighting. This is the first demonstration application of a megawatt zinc iron liquid flow battery in the world.

Meeting the market demand for new energy storage requires a significant increase in production capacity

According to incomplete statistics, 26 provinces and cities across the country have planned installation targets for new energy storage during the "14th Five Year Plan" period. It is expected that by 2025, the total planned installed capacity of new energy storage on the power generation side will be nearly 67 GW; At the same time, new energy storage and shared energy storage have also become the focus of development efforts in various regions in 2023. This year, more than 10 provinces, including Shandong, Shanxi, Inner Mongolia, Liaoning, Jilin, Zhejiang, and Guangdong, have proposed to build new energy storage projects.

It is worth noting that the zero carbon demonstration factory built by Weijing Energy Storage in Zhuhai is not only the first gigawatt level factory for Weijing Energy Storage, but also the first gigawatt level factory for new energy storage liquid flow batteries in China. Weijing Energy Storage stated that it will ultimately build here as a "black light factory" for full chain digital intelligent production, realizing the digital intelligent transformation of liquid flow battery stack production.

After more than 40 years of development, zinc iron liquid flow battery technology has matured. Looking back at the initial stage of industrialization in the energy storage industry, there was no mature and referential factory intelligent production line manufacturing process, which greatly affected the industrialization progress of liquid flow batteries. In response, the intelligent manufacturing engineers, process engineers, and equipment engineers of Weijing Energy Storage have been exploring from 0, integrating advanced full link digital intelligence technology, and independently developing multiple new processes. They have successively overcome nearly 50 process and equipment difficulties, and successfully developed a localized intelligent production line for zinc iron flow battery stacks.

With its excellent capacity replication model, Weijing Energy Storage has planned multiple "super G factories" for zinc iron liquid flow batteries in Jiangsu, Jiangxi, Shandong, Hubei, and other places. Its capacity will also move from 100 megawatts to gigawatts, injecting new momentum into the transformation and upgrading of the Yangtze River Delta region and even the entire Chinese intelligent manufacturing industry.

A series of layouts to enhance production capacity of Weijing Energy Storage are vigorously compensating for the market demand for new energy storage batteries and promoting the industrialization process of new energy storage batteries. We believe that in the future, more and more new energy storage projects will be launched in Weijing, creating a green and low-carbon business card for the city.

Relying on the scale of intelligent manufacturing, Weijing's zinc iron liquid flow battery for energy storage has more advantages. These experiences will become a valuable asset for Weijing Energy Storage in promoting urban renewal and building a green and low-carbon city, as well as a microcosm of accelerating the industrialization of zinc iron liquid flow batteries.