The detailed rules of the new energy storage planning during the 14th five-year Plan have been interpreted by experts: the development of multi-technological routes, cost reduction and demonstration pilot projects have become important.

The National Development and Reform Commission recently issued the implementation Plan for the Development of New Energy Storage in the 14th five-year Plan, which points out that by 2025, the new type of energy storage will enter the stage of large-scale development from the initial stage of commercialization and have the conditions for large-scale commercial application. Among them, the performance of electrochemical energy storage technology is further improved, and the cost of the system is reduced by more than 30%.

"as a matter of fact, this plan has not been officially released so far. this should be a document jointly issued by the National Development and Reform Commission and the National Energy Administration. This document may be published in a stream, starting from the central government to the local government in accordance with the process. In this process, it may have flowed out first, and in theory, it has not been officially released yet. Basically, that may be all, and it should not change in the future, "a source in China's energy research industry told the Financial Associated Press."

The person believes that the comparison of the previous consultation draft of the printing plan defines several directions that need to be pushed by the new type of energy storage in the future, and the only quantitative indicator is to reduce costs, which is the premise of large-scale and industrial application. In addition, the programme does not mention the goal of industrial scale, and more emphasis is placed on technological research and development and project demonstration, which is relatively more pragmatic. The increment of energy storage in the market was very large last year, and the growth rate this year depends on the promotion of the energy storage ratio of local allocation.

According to the analysis of brokerage institutions, starting from the end of 2021, documents on energy storage business models have been issued at the provincial level one after another. In the context of double carbon, the policy end is expected to continue to make efforts in the top-level design, and it is expected that more energy storage policies will be implemented this year, so as to further straighten out the energy storage business model and accelerate the development of the energy storage industry. Driven by falling costs, the energy storage industry and energy storage installation are expected to usher in a golden period of development.

Make clear the system cost reduction target

According to the implementation Plan for the Development of New Energy Storage in the 14th five-year Plan, by 2025, the new energy storage will enter the stage of large-scale development from the initial stage of commercialization, with the conditions for large-scale commercial application; by 2030, the new energy storage will develop in an all-round way. Among them, it is clearly mentioned that the performance of electrochemical energy storage technology is further improved and the cost of the system is reduced by more than 30%.

How is the rate of cost reduction considered? The reporter previously learned from Xie Jia, a professor at Huazhong University of Science and Technology, that 92% of the scale of electrochemical energy storage is lithium energy storage, and no matter in terms of policy direction or market demand, there is an urgent need to break through the key technologies in power energy storage, but the challenge is also very obvious. People may love and hate lithium batteries. With the development of power battery, the whole cost of energy storage battery decreases rapidly. When the price of raw materials has not yet risen, if the cost of kilowatt-hour is very economical, the cost of kilowatt-hour in the whole life cycle can be about 0.5 yuan to 0.6 yuan, but if it needs to meet large-scale commercial operation, it may reach less than 0.4 yuan per kilowatt-hour or even close to 0.3 yuan per kilowatt-hour.

Electrochemical energy storage is divided into two lines, one is photovoltaic, wind power + energy storage power station, the other is lithium + sodium ion battery energy storage power station. The above-mentioned Chinese energy researchers told reporters that at present, energy storage is mainly pumped energy storage, electrochemical energy storage is mainly lithium energy storage, and energy storage technology has been gradually applied to various power scenarios.

He believes that the energy storage model, in fact, there are still a lot of problems in various places, and the most fundamental point may be that the cost of the battery is too high, so reducing the cost is the core element. If we want to achieve a cost reduction of more than 30%, I feel that it is actually difficult, so it is expected that the electrochemical energy storage will still be dominated by lithium batteries during the 14th five-year Plan period. In addition to energy storage, 90% of the market demand for downstream applications is in the field of electric vehicles, accounting for a large share.

The cost of lithium batteries has fallen relatively fast in the past 10 years, and it will be difficult to reduce the cost of lithium batteries significantly in the next few years. At the same time, it is estimated that there is still a gap between the use of energy storage batteries and the battery use of electric vehicles in the next few years, which may not be able to meet the cost reduction brought about by economies of scale.

In addition, there is a great demand for downstream terminal electric vehicles, and the price of lithium resources has risen sharply. Key materials, including matching electrolytes, have increased prices to varying degrees. When it is difficult to reduce the cost of raw materials, it mainly depends on the decline in the integration of energy storage systems, but prices may not necessarily fall this year.

Emphasize technological breakthroughs and pilot demonstrations

The reporter noted that in the new energy storage plan of the 14th five-year Plan, the key direction of core technology and equipment emphasizes the development of diversified technologies, including 100 megawatt compressed air energy storage key technologies, 100 megawatt high safety, low cost, long life lithium ion battery energy storage technology, 100 megawatt liquid flow battery technology, sodium ion battery, solid lithium ion battery technology, high performance lead-carbon battery technology, megawatt supercapacitor. Liquid metal battery, metal air battery, hydrogen (ammonia) energy storage, hot (cold) energy storage, etc. It is also mentioned in the document that we should focus on various application scenarios, pay attention to diversified technological routes, and actively carry out pilot demonstrations of new types of energy storage.

The above-mentioned Chinese energy research industry said that the current technology of lithium batteries has reached a very mature stage, so it is very important to achieve breakthroughs in non-lithium battery technologies such as sodium-ion batteries in the future. In addition, there are a lot of demonstration projects mentioned in the planning content, and the existing technology research and development may have to be further promoted. There is still some controversy over the route, whether it is through lithium batteries or some other technologies when it comes to energy storage in the power system. People now think that the current lithium battery-based model may still need to be optimized.

He also said that the pilot project is relatively specific, including demonstration areas such as Qinghai and Zhangjiakou. Compared with last year's goal alone, the current urban plan is more stable, or more pragmatic, and some of the things that various places are going to do now are more specific. In recent years, it is expected to focus on regional demonstration, which may not be suitable for large-scale allocation of a large amount of energy storage. In the current business model is not very clear, quantity is the second, the key is to reduce costs, the demonstration project to do a good job, out of this model, the next step is to promote on a large scale.

The previous "draft for soliciting opinions" proposed that the installed scale of energy storage at the end of the 14th five-year Plan should reach more than 30GW. The above-mentioned people in the Chinese energy research industry believe that the latest plan does not mention the target of industrial scale, and more emphasis is placed on some, such as technology research and development and project demonstration, which have a direct stimulating effect on the market or are relatively limited. Various localities have introduced relevant reform measures and carried out reform pilot projects to study and establish a reasonable energy storage cost sharing and dredging mechanism on the basis of in-depth exploration of energy storage technology routes and innovative business models. This also shows that there is still a long way to go to establish a mature market environment and business model for energy storage.

According to the statistics of Zhongguancun Energy Storage Industry Technology Alliance, only Qinghai, Shandong, Hunan, Zhejiang, Inner Mongolia and Southern Electroweb have reached 39GW in the 14th five-year Plan, which is higher than the national 30GW target. At the same time, more than 20 percent have made clear the energy storage ratio of new energy allocation. According to the preliminary calculation of the plan, the total installed scale of energy storage is expected to reach about 47GW. According to the White Paper on Energy Storage Industry Research 2021, China's energy storage market will reach 35.5 GW in a conservative scenario and 55.9GW in an ideal scenario. This means that energy storage will maintain an average annual compound growth rate of more than 72% from 2022 to 2025.