The Future of Smart Green Energy: The Rise of Innovative Energy Storage Systems
Energy security is crucial for economic and social development. Since 2014, China has made significant progress in energy reform. Ensuring energy security and promoting green development are core tasks of this transition. A key task is the high proportion of new energy supply and consumption in the new power system. This is necessary to achieve the “carbon peak and carbon neutrality” goals.
By the end of 2023, China’s wind and solar power capacity reached 1.05 billion kilowatts. This accounted for 36% of the total installed power capacity, with over 15% of the electricity generated. However, renewable energy’s intermittent nature challenges the power system’s safe and efficient operation. Energy storage systems play a vital role here. They provide peak shaving, frequency regulation, voltage support, backup power, and black start services. This enhances the flexibility, stability, and security of the traditional power system.
The Chinese government has introduced several favorable policies to support energy storage systems. In 2014, the State Council released the “Energy Development Strategy Action Plan (2014-2020),” identifying energy storage as a key innovation area. In 2017, the first guidance policy on large-scale energy storage technology and application development was issued. By 2021, the “Guiding Opinions on Accelerating the Development of New Energy Storage” set the overall development goals for the next decade. In 2024, new energy storage development was included in the government work report, marking a significant milestone.
Energy storage systems can be applied on the generation side, the grid side, and the user side, with different functions for each. On the generation side, storage smooths output fluctuations and stores peak electricity, reducing impacts on the power system. On the grid side, storage enhances frequency regulation, reducing losses from frequent switching of traditional frequency power. It also improves peak shaving capabilities and can reliably respond to dispatch instructions. On the user side, storage provides reliable emergency power, improves power quality, and saves costs by utilizing peak and off-peak price differences.
Despite their importance, new energy storage faces challenges like cost-sharing and grid scheduling. The profitability of energy storage stations is often below expectations, and their performance needs improvement. Thus, promoting innovation in the energy storage industry is crucial for supporting large-scale, safe renewable energy development and achieving carbon goals.
Innovation in energy storage systems focuses on safety, economy, and sustainability. Safety is fundamental; storage devices must achieve intrinsic safety and prevent thermal runaway under normal or specified abuse conditions. Economic feasibility is also key; high costs per kilowatt-hour hinder storage adoption. By 2023, the cost of lithium batteries fell below 0.4 yuan per watt-hour due to lower raw material costs and industry scaling. This reduced the lifecycle cost of lithium storage to 0.40-0.45 yuan per kilowatt-hour. Future goals include extending battery life to over 15 years and reducing costs to 0.30 yuan by 2026 and 0.20 yuan by 2030.
To sum up, energy storage systems and smart green power are crucial to China’s energy revolution. By enhancing the flexibility and reliability of the power system, the realization of smart green power will be just around the corner!
