China’s operational new-type energy storage capacity reached 167 GW/435 GWh at the end of September 2026, up 63% year on year, according to National Energy Administration figures released on October 30. The NEA presented the data at its quarterly press conference on national energy developments.
The category covers electrochemical, compressed-air and other emerging storage systems, but excludes conventional pumped hydro. At the end of 2025, China had 135.93 GW/351.12 GWh of new-type storage in operation, implying a net increase of about 31 GW/84 GWh in the first nine months of 2026.
Average storage duration rose to 2.61 hours, about 0.27 hours more than a year earlier. Equivalent utilization hours reached about 915 hours over the nine-month period, roughly 10 hours above the same period in 2025. The improvements suggest that China’s storage expansion is being accompanied by gradual changes in system configuration and use, rather than growth in installed capacity alone.
Policy support and market structure
The agency attributed the build-out to government policies, technological innovation, industrial supply chains and rising demand for flexibility in the power system. China’s combined wind and solar generating capacity exceeded 2.01 TW at the end of September, equal to about 48.7% of total installed power capacity. As variable renewable output grows, storage is increasingly needed to absorb surplus electricity, shift generation toward periods of higher demand and provide fast-response grid services.
Official 2025 figures show how the market is composed. Independent energy storage facilities accounted for 51.2% of cumulative new-type storage installations. Projects rated at 100 MW or above represented 72% of installed capacity, while systems with durations of at least four hours made up 27.6%. Lithium-ion batteries remained dominant, at about 96% of installed new-type storage capacity, while compressed-air, flow batteries and other technologies continued to expand their presence.
Market reforms are expected to reinforce these trends. China has been developing arrangements that allow independent storage operators to earn revenue from electricity trading, ancillary services and capacity remuneration, gradually reducing reliance on mandatory storage requirements tied to renewable projects. Under the 15th Five-Year Plan for power system development, new-type storage capacity is targeted to reach 300 GW by 2030, with greater emphasis on longer-duration systems, grid-forming capabilities and operational efficiency.
Grid balancing in Inner Mongolia
The growing role of storage is already visible in renewable-rich regional grids. In western Inner Mongolia, the grid operator reported 20.23 GW/70.47 GWh of operational storage capacity in October. During emergency dispatch operations, storage supplied up to 12.25 GW, equivalent to 33% of the grid’s electricity demand at the time.
Such examples illustrate how storage can provide substantial short-term balancing capacity in power systems with high renewable penetration. For other countries expanding wind and solar generation, China’s deployment offers experience in large-scale storage manufacturing, grid integration and centralized dispatch.