Recently, the Development and Reform Commission of Ningxia Autonomous Region officially issued the Notice on Promoting the Healthy Development of Energy Storage, which clearly supports the construction of large-capacity, safe, and efficient energy storage with a capacity of more than 4 hours. When new energy enterprises sign rental contracts with such energy storage facilities, the storage scale will be calculated at 1.2 times the power.

Compared to the draft released on July 31 this year, the phrase strictly enforce the one-year validity period for grid access opinions of newly registered projects has been changed to projects that have been registered for more than two years but have not started construction or handled other procedures will automatically become invalid; in terms of increasing the proportion of capacity leasing, the phrase support energy storage construction with a capacity (power × duration) exceeding 2 times that of electrochemical energy storage has been changed to support the construction of large-capacity (power × duration), safe, and efficient energy storage with a duration of more than 4 hours.

Long-Duration Energy Storage (LDES) typically refers to energy storage technologies with a discharge duration of no less than 4 hours and a lifespan of at least 20 years. When wind and solar power generation are affected by natural factors such as climate and terrain, resulting in daily/weekly/seasonal intermittency, long-duration energy storage technologies with daily/weekly/seasonal regulation capabilities are required. LDES can leverage its characteristics of long cycle and large capacity to regulate the output fluctuations of new energy sources over an extended time horizon.

The current grid design is mainly based on the power generation characteristics of traditional fossil fuel power plants, which cannot effectively adapt to the intermittency and volatility of wind and solar power generation. In particular, solar and wind power generation are significantly influenced by weather and seasonal factors, posing challenges to the stability of the grid.

The demand for storage duration is closely related to the proportion of wind and solar power generation in the grid. The higher the proportion, the longer the required storage duration. Currently, due to the relatively low proportion of wind and solar power generation (less than 20%), only a 4-hour storage duration is needed. However, considering extreme scenarios, if wind and solar power generation reaches 100%, given its inherent instability, the storage duration would need to be extended to more than 12 hours.

There is still a significant gap in the duration of energy storage for new energy sources between China and abroad. Currently, data shows that the average storage duration in the United States is about 3 hours, with most battery storage systems deployed in California having a discharge time of more than 4 hours. This year, the U.S. has not only made substantial investments in long-duration energy storage but also actively promoted the development and commercialization of long-duration energy storage technologies through policy support and technological innovation.

In the first three quarters of 2024, China's newly added new energy storage capacity was approximately 27 GW/61 GWh. As of the end of September, a total of 58.52 million kilowatts/128 million kilowatt-hours of new energy storage had been built and put into operation nationwide, with an average storage duration reaching 2.2 hours. According to incomplete statistics, there are currently 25 provinces (municipalities, and autonomous regions), including Inner Mongolia, which have set targets for new energy storage installation by 2025 in their policy documents, with a total planned scale exceeding 88.8 GW. These publicly available data indicate that China has already achieved its 14th Five-Year Plan target for new energy storage installation ahead of schedule. With the increase in the proportion of renewable energy, the pressure on grid regulation increases, and storage becomes a standard requirement for grid connection, with the ratio gradually rising from 10%-20% to 15%-30%, and the storage duration increasing from 1-2 hours to 4-5 hours; according to statistics, ten provinces including Hebei, Tibet, Inner Mongolia, Shanghai, and Xinjiang have explicitly proposed configuring long-duration energy storage with a duration of more than 4 hours. Based on this year's centralized procurement bidding and other situations, the overall trend for storage with a duration of more than 4 hours is growing. In addition, in July 2023, Shandong Province issued the Several Measures to Support the Pilot Application of Long-Duration Energy Storage, which is the first local special policy supporting the development of long-duration energy storage in China. Long-duration energy storage can enjoy preferential policies such as priority grid access, priority leasing, increased capacity compensation standards, and exemption from transmission and distribution prices. In a report previously released by the Electric Power Planning Institute, it was also forecasted that in the future, long-duration energy storage with a duration of 4 hours or more will become the main force driving the development of the energy storage industry.

Long-duration energy storage is an inevitable choice in the era of carbon neutrality. This year's national policy orientation has clearly supported the technological innovation and development of new energy storage types that are safe, large-capacity, low-cost, and long-life. With continuous breakthroughs and iterations in technology, long-duration energy storage systems with a duration of 4 hours or more will undoubtedly become an important force in promoting higher levels of development for China's energy storage industry and play a crucial role in constructing a new power system.

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