Aerial photo taken on May 26, 2022 shows a salt cavern compressed air energy storage in Changzhou City, east China's Jiangsu Province. (Photo by Hu Ping/Xinhua)

BEIJING, April 11 (Xinhua) -- U.S. carmaker Tesla Inc. on Sunday announced that it will build a new mega factory in Shanghai, which will be dedicated to manufacturing the company's energy-storage product Megapack.

Tesla's new move is the latest development in China's new energy-storage industry that has witnessed robust growth in recent years. With advances in energy-storage technology and local projects which have been put into service, the industry is helping to drive China's green development.

FAST GROWTH

According to a report recently issued by China Energy Storage Alliance (CNESA), by the end of 2022, China's cumulative installed capacity of new energy storage reached 13.1 gigawatts, with an annual growth rate of 128 percent.

New energy storage refers to energy-storage technologies other than conventional pump storage, including lithium-ion batteries, liquid flow batteries, flywheel, compressed air, hydrogen and ammonia, as well as heat and cold energy storage.

The report also showed that the world's cumulative installed capacity of new energy storage reached 45.7 gigawatts by the end of 2022, rising 80 percent year on year.

China, Europe, and the United States continue to lead the global market in the sector. Their new energy-storage capacity in 2022 accounted for 86 percent of the global total, up 6 percentage points from 2021.

The CNESA report estimated that China's cumulative installed capacity of new energy storage in 2027 may reach 138.4 gigawatts if the country's provincial-level regions achieve their targets of energy-storage construction.

TECHNOLOGY ADVANCE

An energy-storage system charges when wind power or photovoltaic power generates a large volume of electricity or when the power consumption is low, and discharges otherwise.

It can not only smooth the unstable output of photovoltaic power or wind power to increase the proportion of renewable energy in the grid but also work with conventional power sources, including thermal power and nuclear power, to provide auxiliary services such as peak and frequency regulation for power systems and improve its flexibility.

Compared with pump storage, the new energy storage has advantages such as flexible site selection, short construction cycle, fast and flexible response, and diverse functions and characteristics, according to Liu Yafang, a senior official with the National Energy Administration.

The new energy storage has been widely embedded in various parts of power systems, such as generation, grid, and load, profoundly changing the operation of traditional power systems and becoming an indispensable supporting facility for its safe, stable, and economical operation, he said, adding that it will change the development structure and operation pattern of power systems in the future.

Dai Jianfeng, a deputy chief engineer of China Electric Power Planning and Engineering Institute, said the new energy storage in China has been developed through diverse technology routes.

According to him, lithium-ion battery is still dominant at present, but the development of compressed air and liquid flow battery is accelerating. New technology routes such as sodium ion batteries, carbon dioxide, and gravity energy storage have also demonstrated their potential in industrial applications.

LOCAL PROJECTS

WeView, an energy-storage company headquartered in Shanghai, started its first smart production line of zinc-iron flow batteries in January in Yancheng, east China's Jiangsu Province. Its production line in Zhuhai, south China's Guangdong Province, is expected to produce flow batteries in June.

The company has also planned to build several factories in Guangdong, Shandong, Hubei and Zhejiang provinces, with a total production capacity of zinc-iron flow batteries reaching gigawatt-level.

The new energy storage has been applied in power systems with strong production capacity.

China's first megawatt iron-chromium flow battery energy-storage demonstration project successfully started trial operation at the end of February in Tongliao, north China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, and will soon be put into commercial use.

Built by the State Power Investment Corporation (SPIC), the project set a new world record for iron-chromium flow battery storage capacity. Consisting of 34 homegrown battery stacks and four groups of storage tanks, it can store up to 6,000 kWh of electricity every time.

According to Zhao Jinyu, general manager of SPIC's Inner Mongolia branch, the project can store electric power and release it to curb power fluctuation of the grid, assist peak and frequency regulation, and play an active role in absorbing energy such as wind power and solar power in a large proportion, saving energy and reducing carbon emission.