[SMM Energy Storage Battery Cell Market Weekly Review 8.13] Utility-Scale Energy Storage Prices Hold Steady, Residential ESS Market Cools Marginally

This week, the energy storage battery cell market showed an overall divergent trend. The utility-scale energy storage market remained stable, while the residential ESS market cooled somewhat. Affected by changes in demand pace across different downstream markets, the supply-demand pattern for utility-scale energy storage cells remained tight and prices stayed broadly stable. On the residential ESS side, affected by weaker overseas demand expectations and earlier inventory accumulation, the cargo pick-up pace slowed and some residential ESS cell quotations were revised down. In residential ESS, as support policies in some overseas markets tapered at the margin, H2 end-use demand expectations weakened somewhat.

Meanwhile, H1 residential ESS cell shipments grew rapidly, noticeably outpacing actual shipment growth in the residential ESS integration segment. Inventory along the industry chain accumulated accordingly, and residential ESS inventory is currently at a relatively high level. Against a backdrop of slowing end-use demand growth and channel destocking pressure, some residential ESS integrators became less willing to pick up goods recently, procurement pace slowed, and shipment pressure on battery cell enterprises gradually increased. Correspondingly, residential ESS cell quotations also softened. In the near term, the residential ESS cell market is expected to remain dominated by inventory digestion, with some downward pressure on prices.

For utility-scale energy storage, the market supply-demand pattern did not change significantly this week. Project delivery demand remained strong, and mainstream cell prices stayed broadly stable. Although prices of lithium chemicals and other raw materials pulled back recently, the cost decline has not yet clearly passed through to cell prices due to raw material procurement cycles, order pricing mechanisms, and enterprise profit margins. Only quotations for newly signed orders at some enterprises and for orders using raw material price linkage mechanisms softened. With supply-demand conditions still tight, the impact of lower raw material costs on cell prices is relatively limited, and utility-scale energy storage cell prices are expected to remain stable in the near term.

Overall, the energy storage battery cell market showed relatively pronounced structural divergence this week. Utility-scale energy storage demand maintained strong resilience and supported cell prices; residential ESS, affected by cooling overseas demand and earlier inventory accumulation, entered an inventory digestion phase. Battery cell enterprises' shipment and quotation performance further diverged across different application markets.

SMM New Energy Industry Research Department

Wang Cong 021-51666838

Ma Rui 021-51595780

Feng Disheng 021-51666714

Lyu Yanlin 021-20707875

Zhang Haohan 021-51666752

Wang Zihan 021-51666914

Wang Jie 021-51595902

Xu Yang 021-51666760

Chen Bolin 021-51666836

Yang Le 021-51595898

Li Yisha 021-51666730

Huang Chencong 021-51595860