Is The World About To Experience A New Energy Storage Boom? Hot Discussions at COP29

By the end of 2024, the number of energy storage companies in China has surged to 191,000, more than a tenfold increase compared to 2014. The energy storage sector has reached a vibrant and competitive stage.

In 2024, the global economy is experiencing an unprecedented "chill," and the anticipated flourishing vitality has yet to materialize.

In the vast ocean of the economy, every subtle fluctuation could trigger a series of cascading, monumental chain reactions. These reactions, like a row of dominoes, once set off, spread through the intricate economic networks in unpredictable ways, affecting every corner of the market and influencing the fate of every economy.

The economic cold wave has deeply permeated the manufacturing sector.

The global manufacturing industry is undergoing an industrial upgrade, and traditional manufacturing enterprises must innovate through technology and industrial upgrading, transitioning toward high-end and green manufacturing.

The energy sector is no exception, as everyone feels the powerful waves impacting the original structure.

At the COP29 series of events held in Azerbaijan, "energy storage" was placed at the center of unprecedented attention.

The continuous changes in market demand and the escalating global climate issues are strongly pushing the energy manufacturing industry, and even the global manufacturing industry, toward a transformation focused on green and sustainable development.

New energy storage has emerged as a key player, stepping onto the stage of the times with unprecedented importance.

Around this time last year, the Energy Storage Headlines wrote an article titled "China Now, Needs Energy Storage," in which we emphasized that new energy storage is an unstoppable trend of the times.

Looking ahead, it is clear that for the foreseeable future, the world will have an urgent need for energy storage.

The host country of the UN Climate Change Conference launched the "COP29 Global Energy Storage and Grid Commitment," which aims to accelerate infrastructure development to support the global growth of renewable energy and ensure that global energy storage capacity reaches 1,500 GWh by 2030, with battery storage accounting for 1,200 GWh.

In addition, the commitment also proposes to add or refurbish 25 million kilometers of power grids globally by 2030 and another 65 million kilometers by 2040.

New energy storage: Rising as a national or regional strategy for major global economies

Global climate change actions and the achievement of carbon neutrality goals require a broad and profound revolution in new energy, and the new energy storage industry is the fundamental industry and necessary condition that supports the large-scale application of new energy, thereby driving carbon neutrality.

For a long time, although pumped-storage hydroelectricity accounted for more than half of the cumulative global energy storage capacity, with a share exceeding 80%, in recent years, the main driving force behind the growth in global energy storage installations has been the new energy storage technologies, particularly those represented by electrochemical storage.

New energy storage has become a hot field of global industrial competition.

Major economies, such as the United States, the European Union, and Japan, have all elevated the development of new energy storage industries to national or regional strategic levels.

As early as the beginning, the United States recognized the crucial role of energy storage technology in ensuring grid security and reliability. The country has paid great attention to the development of new energy storage technologies, providing support through top-level design, financial guarantees, tax credits, and other measures.

In 2011, the U.S. Department of Energy launched the "2011-2015 Energy Storage Battery Plan," which focused on how to install energy storage systems to achieve their maximum utility. The plan also guided the optimization of research directions through feedback from energy storage demonstration projects, and it emphasized industrial design for energy storage facilities and strategies for large-scale industrial production.

By 2020, the United States had invested heavily in supporting energy storage. In January of that year, the U.S. Department of Energy announced a $158 million investment to kick off the "Energy Storage Grand Challenge" program. In December 2020, the U.S. officially released its first comprehensive strategic plan for energy storage, titled "Energy Storage Grand Challenge Roadmap."

This roadmap outlined three key challenges: domestic innovation, domestic manufacturing, and global deployment. It proposed 28 specific measures and set clear phase development goals for the energy storage industry.

In November 2022, it was announced that, through the allocation of funds from the "Bipartisan Infrastructure Act" and the "Inflation Reduction Act," nearly $350 million would be provided for emerging long-duration energy storage demonstration projects.

In January 2023, the U.S. Department of Energy's Office of Science announced a $125 million investment under the "Battery and Energy Storage Innovation Center" initiative to support the basic research of next-generation battery storage technologies, aiming to accelerate the deployment of transformative storage technologies in the transportation and power sectors.

The United States is driving the broader commercial demonstration and application of energy storage systems by lowering costs, with the goal of achieving 100% clean electricity by 2035.

The European Union, on the other hand, hopes to utilize high-performance new energy storage batteries to occupy a core position in the future electrified society, aiming to take the lead in global battery research and production.

In January 2021, the European Commission announced the establishment of the European Important Project of Common European Interest (IPCEI) "European Battery Innovation" platform, with Austria, Belgium, Croatia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Poland, Slovakia, Spain, and Sweden jointly investing €2.9 billion to advance innovation and research in the battery value chain and establish a pan-European battery ecosystem.

In January 2023, the European Union announced a €1.8 billion allocation from the Innovation Fund to invest in 16 large-scale innovation projects, including research directions for energy storage technologies such as innovative stationary energy storage and lithium-ion battery recycling technologies.

Due to its high population density and limited land area, the Japanese government favors adopting "distributed clean energy + energy storage" technologies to meet the growing energy demand.

As early as April 2016, Japan's Ministry of Economy, Trade, and Industry released the "Energy and Environmental Technology Innovation Strategy," which clearly stated that by 2050, the country would focus on researching solid-state lithium batteries, lithium-sulfur batteries, new metal-air batteries, and other new battery technologies in the energy storage field.

In December 2020, Japan's Ministry of Economy, Trade, and Industry released the "Green Growth Strategy," which clearly proposed the development of new energy storage technologies with better performance and lower costs.

In August 2022, Japan's Battery Industry Strategic Research Council officially released the "Battery Industry Strategy," which explicitly proposed an investment of 100 billion yen to promote government and private sector cooperation, advancing low-cost, high-value-added integrated battery system research, with the goal of achieving full commercialization of all-solid-state batteries by around 2030.

These are substantial, concrete investments in real money!

Countries around the world are competing to chase after new energy storage, the brilliant gem of the energy sector, striving to occupy this market with unlimited potential. New energy storage technologies will undoubtedly play a crucial role in the future energy landscape.

China’s New Energy Storage: Initial Industry Ecosystem Forming

Amid the fierce competition in the global new energy storage market, China has stood out with its strong strength, demonstrating exceptional competitiveness.

According to data from the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology and the National Energy Administration, China has become the world’s largest market for new energy storage applications.

By the end of September 2024, China had built and put into operation a new energy storage capacity of 58.52 GWh, an increase of about 86% compared to the end of 2023. The newly planned projects for new energy storage reached 37.79 GWh.

The scale of installations in China’s new energy storage market is growing rapidly.

In 2023, the output value of new energy storage exceeded $40 billion, and the industrial ecosystem has begun to take shape. By 2030, China’s cumulative new energy storage capacity is expected to reach 220 GW, and the total industry output value is projected to surpass $400 billion.