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More than a decade ago, the term "energy storage" was still on the fringe of public awareness, but with the leapfrog development of new energy, the contradiction between the continuity of power supply production and the discontinuity of electricity demand has continued to intensify. The application of energy storage systems can solve the problems of strong randomness and high volatility brought about by the access of new energy to the power system in different scenarios. Therefore, the call for the development of energy storage has become stronger. However, problems such as low storage capacity and the need to improve safety have restricted the development of the energy storage industry.

After years of hard work in energy storage technology, my country's energy storage companies are now moving from traditional liquid batteries to safer solid batteries, and the energy storage capacity has also leaped from 2,000 degrees to a new height of 5,000 degrees. The development of the energy storage industry is based on technological innovation. With the help of technological innovation, we can stay at the forefront of energy development and the flexibility value of energy storage will be effectively utilized.

5000 kWh of electricity loaded into a 20-foot container

The energy storage system is like a huge power bank. It first converts electrical energy into other forms of energy through physical or chemical means and stores it, and then converts the energy into electrical energy and releases it when needed.

Under such characteristics, peak shaving and valley filling, peak load regulation and frequency regulation have become the conventional functions of energy storage systems. In the construction of new power systems, energy storage systems can also promote the consumption of new energy such as photovoltaic and wind power, and increase the proportion of renewable energy in the power system.

Public data shows that in 2023, my country's installed capacity of renewable energy power generation will account for more than 50%, with wind power and photovoltaic installed capacity of 1.04 billion kilowatts, accounting for 15% of power generation. In the first half of 2024, the country's cumulative installed capacity of wind and solar power has exceeded 1.18 billion kilowatts.

Driven by the power system, the development of new energy storage is accelerating. By the end of 2023, the total installed capacity of new energy storage projects in operation in my country has reached about 34.5GW/74.5GWh (lithium-ion battery energy storage accounts for 97%), with an average annual growth rate of more than 100% in the past five years. In addition, according to incomplete statistics from the CNESA Global Energy Storage Database, in June 2024, the scale of newly added new energy storage projects in China totaled 5.40GW/11.77GWh, a new high since 2024, up 21%/25% year-on-year.

The demand for energy storage is growing, and improving the energy density of energy storage systems and increasing economic efficiency have become the development direction of the energy storage industry. Beijing Haibosichuang Technology Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Haibosichuang") is a "unicorn" enterprise in the energy storage industry. According to Qian Hao, deputy general manager of Haibosichuang, the improvement of technology can allow containers of the same size to store more electricity. The increase in product energy density not only directly improves system efficiency, but also means that under the same production line conditions, the production capacity is significantly improved. With the increase in product production capacity and the expansion of the scale of energy storage sites, the scale effect of the energy storage industry is prominent, and it will continue to reduce costs.

After more than ten years of exploration in the energy storage industry, Haibosichuang has taken the lead in installing 5,000 kWh of electricity into the 20-foot energy storage system container well-known in the industry. In terms of energy density, Haibosichuang has increased the energy density of the energy storage system container to 339.56 kWh/m3, and its ability to store electricity per unit volume is in the first echelon of the industry.

What does 5,000 kWh mean? "An electric car has a storage capacity of about 50 kWh, so 5,000 kWh is equivalent to the storage capacity of 100 electric cars," said Qian Hao.

Around 2018, in the projects delivered by Haibosichuang, a 20-foot container could store 2,000 kWh of electricity; by 2023, the storage capacity of the same-sized energy storage system reached 3,300 kWh; and now a 20-foot container can already store 5,000 kWh of electricity, more than double that of 2018.

Energy storage products are developing and iterating very quickly, and the Haibosichuang R&D team often works day and night to keep up with the speed of demand upgrades. "Energy storage is a vibrant and fast-growing industry. In recent years, the annual installed capacity has doubled or tripled that of the previous year, and the energy density of products has continued to increase. We must adapt to this rhythm, quickly conduct full-process product verification, and quickly launch new products." Qian Hao said.

Digitalization solves integration problems

"Without integrated technology, an enterprise will be eliminated sooner or later," Qian Hao believes.

As an industry that integrates multiple disciplines, the control and optimization of energy storage systems is a difficult point that companies must overcome. However, it is not easy to have integrated technology, and it is also difficult to iterate integrated technology.

From 2011 to 2015, my country's electrochemical energy storage technology was still in the demonstration application stage. For most companies, this was also a critical period. In order to solve technical problems, energy storage companies need to invest a lot of energy.

At that time, Haibosichuang was still in the stage of technology accumulation and market exploration. Although the company's R&D team had technical reserves in many fields, it mainly mastered some core technologies related to battery management systems. The products it developed also lacked standardization, and each project required many employees to be sent to the site to participate in debugging.

For a sophisticated energy storage system, from cells to batteries to containers, and even to final use, every link has something to pay attention to.

Qian Hao mentioned that energy storage is a very complex and nonlinear system. One of the mainstream energy storage applications is electrochemical energy storage using lithium batteries as carriers. The battery cells use electrochemical technology and usually output direct current, while we use alternating current in our daily production and life. The conversion from direct current to alternating current requires power electronics technology. In addition, the energy storage system also requires battery management and control technology, electrical design technology for connecting a large number of batteries in series and parallel, and so on.

However, by 2016, Haibosichuang built a production base in Fangshan, Beijing, which integrates R&D and production, and also built an experimental testing center, systematically improving its technology and product R&D capabilities, testing and verification capabilities, and production and manufacturing capabilities.

"From the perspective of R&D, we must promote the digitalization of products." Qian Hao said that the aforementioned experimental test center records the unique ID of the battery cell from the moment it enters the factory, as well as its charge and discharge capacity, performance and other indicators, to achieve refined production management and full-process traceability of product quality. As the entire system becomes increasingly intelligent and digital, the energy storage system can be fully debugged in the factory, and after being transported to the project site, only standardized simple debugging operations are required to achieve grid connection. Data from the project site can also be sent back remotely to facilitate remote operation and maintenance.

The following year, Haibosichuang successfully delivered a 57.45MWh user-side energy storage system project, and has since fully mastered the key technologies and industrialization capabilities of energy storage systems. It was also in this year that the National Energy Administration issued the "Guiding Opinions on Promoting the Development of my country's Energy Storage Technology and Industry", which was the first guiding document for my country's energy storage industry, and my country's energy storage projects entered the early stages of commercialization.

Semi-solid-state batteries break through energy storage safety

In 2022, the "14th Five-Year Plan for the Development of New Energy Storage" was issued, which clearly stated that by 2025, new energy storage will enter the stage of large-scale development from the initial stage of commercialization and will have the conditions for large-scale commercial applications.

With the rapid development of my country's energy storage market and the gradual clarification of policy support, major domestic and foreign companies have begun to increase their layout of energy storage products, the number of market participants has gradually increased, and the market scale has gradually expanded. The "Energy Storage Industry Research White Paper 2024" released by the Zhongguancun Energy Storage Industry Technology Alliance shows that in 2023, China's new energy storage installed capacity will exceed 20GW for the first time, three times the level of the same period in 2022.

However, safety issues have always restricted the rapid development of the energy storage industry. In the domestic energy storage industry, lithium iron phosphate batteries are the mainstream technology route, but lithium iron phosphate batteries have safety risks such as thermal runaway and electrolyte leakage during use.

Zhao Yongqiang, director of the Renewable Energy Development Center of the Energy Research Institute of the National Development and Reform Commission, once publicly stated that from the perspective of new energy storage technology routes, costs have been declining in the past few years; in the long run, cost, safety, and resource security are the most critical driving factors for its technological development, and the safety issues of large-scale new energy storage development are becoming increasingly prominent.

Therefore, many energy storage companies have turned their attention to safer semi-solid batteries. Unlike liquid batteries, semi-solid batteries are safer and can be intrinsically safe because they reduce the risk of liquid electrolyte leakage and flammability. Taking semi-solid lithium batteries as an example, semi-solid lithium batteries combine safety, energy density and economy by reducing the content of liquid electrolytes and increasing the coating of solid electrolytes. They are now ready for mass production.

It is understood that Haibosichuang has also worked with its partner Beijing Weilan New Energy Technology Co., Ltd. to develop energy storage system products based on semi-solid lithium-ion batteries, which have been applied in projects such as the Longquan Semi-Solid Energy Storage Power Station in Lishui, Zhejiang.

Since 2022, the research and development and industrialization of solid-state batteries have made significant progress, and semi-solid-state batteries have been industrialized. However, industry research reports show that my country's solid-state battery industry is currently in its infancy, and the industry generally believes that large-scale mass production of all-solid-state batteries will take another 5-10 years.

Looking to the future, some institutions predict that the large-scale production and application of solid-state batteries will begin around 2027; it is expected that by 2030, global solid-state battery shipments will reach 614.1GWh, and the market size will exceed 250 billion yuan. From a domestic perspective, the Zhongguancun Energy Storage Industry Technology Alliance predicts that by then, the cumulative installed capacity of China's new energy storage market will exceed 200GW, with a compound growth rate of more than 30% from 2024 to 2030.

Beijing Business Daily reporter Ran Lili