China deployed 533.3MW of new electrochemical energy storage projects in the first three quarters of 2020, an increase of 157% on the same period in 2019.

According to work by the China Energy Storage Alliance’s (CNESA) in-house research group, the country now has around 33.1GW of installed energy storage project capacity in total, with global cumulative capacity now at about 186.1GW. These figures include all forms of energy storage including pumped hydro, which still accounts for more than 90% of installed capacity.

However, pumped hydro’s share is being eroded steadily while electrochemical energy storage capacities’ share increases. In China, lithium-ion batteries make up about 85% of this electrochemical storage capacity and worldwide the figure is even higher, at 90%, CNESA’s ES Research found.

Worldwide, sodium sulfur (NAS) batteries take the next biggest share, at 5%, with lead-acid at about 4%. In China, the picture is slightly different, with lead-acid taking a 14% share, while sodium-sulfur – the only global manufacturer of which is Japan’s NGK Insulators, not even registering. In both pictures, flow batteries remain at about 1% and supercapacitors even less than that.

CNESA noted that during the third quarter, China’s installed capacity of electrochemical storage went beyond the 2GW mark, with 2242.92MW installed to date, against a global total of 10,902.4MW. For the period between January and September this year, 1,381.9MW of electrochemical storage was deployed worldwide, an increase of 42% on the same period last year, with the aforementioned 533.3MW in China.

According to CNESA’s research team therefore, 38% of global new energy storage capacity addition was in China, making it the world’s leader for the year so far. In addition to the significant ramp-up in capacity, CNESA’s monthly market update reported several significant steps forward in China alongside some major project news.