Liang Wang from Ganfeng LiEnergy Discusses: Analysis of the Development Status and Trends of Industrial and Commercial ESS [New Energy Summit]

At the 2025 (10th) New Energy Industry Expo - New Energy PV ESS Forum hosted by SMM Information & Technology Co., Ltd., Liang Wang, R&D Director of Ganfeng LiEnergy (Dongguan) Technology Co., Ltd., shared insights on the topic "Current Status and Trend Analysis of Industrial and Commercial ESS Development." **Current Status** **Overall Growth Scale** **Global Installations in 2024**: Global new installations of industrial and commercial ESS are expected to reach 4.4 GW/10.9 GWh in 2024, indicating sustained growth in demand worldwide. **Domestic Market Installations in 2024**: In the Chinese market, new installations are projected to be around 2.8 GW/7.5 GWh, up 53.06% YoY. The market demand is robust, supported by strong policies, with broad prospects for future development. **Global and Chinese Market Forecast for 2025**: This year, global new installations are expected to reach 6.1 GW/15.26 GWh, while domestic new installations are forecasted at 4.8 GW/10.56 GWh. This also signals more investment and development opportunities in the coming years. **Accelerated Digital Transformation** 1. **Wide Application of Technologies**: Technologies such as cloud computing, big data, and AI are widely adopted in enterprises. Industrial and commercial ESS is transitioning from hardware integration to software AI-driven computing. 2. **Customization and Quality Improvement**: Through software-defined approaches, more flexible functional expansion and system optimization are achieved, enabling smarter monitoring, diagnostics, and decision-making. 3. **Optimized Customer Service**: Digital transformation allows enterprises to better understand customer needs, provide personalized services, and enhance customer satisfaction and loyalty. **Enhanced Green Development Awareness** **Development Trends** **Differentiated Demand on the Application Side** 1. **Energy Storage Allocation for Traditional Industrial and Commercial Enterprises**: Peak-valley arbitrage, virtual capacity management, and backup power supply. 2. **Integrated PV ESS Charging**: ESS mitigates the instantaneous high-power load of NEV charging stations, while distributed PV + ESS reduces grid electricity purchases. 3. **Microgrids and ESS**: Industrial parks aggregate PV, wind power, and ESS to optimize internal energy distribution, achieving "self-generation and self-consumption + surplus storage" for local energy autonomy. **Deepening Service-Oriented Transformation** 1. **"Product + Service" Model**: Manufacturing enterprises no longer just provide products but shift to a "product + service" model, offering comprehensive energy services, equipment financing, operation and maintenance, and system solutions. 2. **Increased Customer Stickiness**: By providing value-added services, enterprises enhance customer stickiness. The "ESS + energy efficiency management" solution, combined with AI algorithms, optimizes electricity strategies and designs flexible "peak-valley arbitrage + demand-side response" models, improving customer satisfaction and loyalty. 3. **Innovation in Service Models**: Equipment enterprises continuously innovate service models, embedding "finance + industry" scenarios, offering "ESS equipment leasing + carbon credit trading services," and enhancing project economics through data services and remote technical support. **Cross-Border Business Expansion** 1. **Going Global and Diversifying Scenarios**: With the rapid development of domestic industrial and commercial sectors, overseas users are shifting from home storage to high-voltage and industrial-commercial ESS. The long certification cycle for going global requires enterprises to plan early, leveraging global resources to build production and sales networks. 2. **Risks of Cross-Border Operations**: Cross-border expansion brings risks such as cultural differences and varying legal environments. Enterprises need to manage risks and address post-sales operation, maintenance, and local staff training. 3. **Opportunities for Global Collaboration**: Enterprises going global should focus on "localization," combining digital tools, compliant operations, and resource integration to expand from single-point breakthroughs to regional depth, ultimately achieving brand globalization. **Integrated Development of Virtual Power Plants** 1. **5G + AI + IoT Collaboration**: 5G enables real-time control of distributed resources, while AI optimizes resource scheduling strategies, improving response speed and accuracy. Edge gateway technology facilitates rapid data exchange. 2. **Deep Coupling with Microgrids**: Virtual power plants act as the "brain" of microgrids, coordinating distributed energy and local loads to promote zero-carbon park construction. 3. **Integrated Generation-Grid-Load-Storage**: Aggregating distributed PV, ESS, charging piles, and air conditioning loads forms a "generation-storage-consumption" closed loop, enabling local green electricity consumption and peak shaving. **Challenges** **Intensified Market Competition** 1. **Surge and Rapid Exit of Enterprises**: Over 50,000 new industrial and commercial enterprises emerged in 2023, but 40% exited by the end of 2024. Rising technical barriers and financial pressures accelerate industry consolidation, with top-tier enterprises gaining advantages through scale and intelligence. 2. **Channel Resource Competition**: Industrial and commercial ESS projects are highly decentralized, relying on localized deployment. Intermediaries play a key role, with some route fees rising to 0.2 yuan/Wh, accounting for 30% of product costs, intensifying market competition. 3. **Price War Escalation**: Low technical barriers in system integration lead to price wars, with some enterprises even offering loss-making bids, severely compressing industry profit margins. **Policy Regional Differentiation and Innovation** After shifting from policy-driven to market-driven, enterprises must compete on technology, cost control, and operational capabilities. **Business Model Innovation (Profit Diversification, Asset-Light Operations)** 1. **Energy Performance Contracting (EMC)**: Energy service providers invest in construction and share revenue with owners at a certain ratio, offering zero investment and low risk for owners. This is currently the mainstream model. 2. **Leasing Model**: Owners lease ESS equipment, paying fixed rents, with profits going to the owners. 3. **Owner Investment Model**: Owners purchase equipment outright, retaining all profits, suitable for well-funded enterprises. 4. **Financial Leasing + EMC**: Introducing financial institutions reduces initial investment pressure, suitable for large-scale projects. **Click to view the special report on the 2025 (10th) New Energy Industry Expo.**