A revamp of China’s electricity market is boosting the economics of storing power just as international demand surges, sparking a boom for the Chinese energy storage manufacturers that already dominate globally.
Chinese firms are on track for a 75 per cent jump this year in global shipments of lithium-ion battery cells for energy storage, according to one estimate.
They have exported more than US$65 billion worth of storage and electric-vehicle batteries this year, cementing their dominance in a sector vital to backing up wind and solar and keeping power coursing through artificial-intelligence data centres.
The surge in sales is driven by data centres and renewables domestically, as well as by Chinese reforms and subsidies that are boosting general demand for energy storage.
International demand is rising in tandem with the surging growth in data centres, a need to back up Europe’s ageing grid and China’s burgeoning renewable energy business in the Middle East, analysts say.
“These leading energy storage cell makers, they have full orders. Many of them are basically working double shifts now to try and meet demand,” said analyst Cosimo Ries at policy research firm Trivium China. The boom “is one of the biggest surprises of the year, I think, in China’s energy space.”
UBS last month raised its 2026 forecast for global battery-energy storage installations by 25 per cent.
The International Energy Agency forecasts global investment in battery storage facilities will rise 16 per cent this year to $66 billion.
Much of that is set to be captured by Chinese firms because while Tesla is number one in energy storage systems, China dominates production of the tiny cells inside them.
