On November 18th, the People's Government of Beijing publicly released the "Beijing Municipal Implementation Plan for the Development of New Energy Storage Industry (2024-2027) Draft for Comments". The draft points out that the diversified demonstration applications of new energy storage should be steadily promoted in non-crowded areas, in line with the city's industrial development safety strategy. Encouragement is given to demonstration areas such as Changping District, Fangshan District, and Beijing Economic-Technological Development Area to carry out demonstration applications around high-safety energy storage technology routes and energy storage system safety technologies, including semi-solid/solid-state batteries and flow batteries.

By 2025, the capability for new technology innovation will be comprehensively enhanced, with breakthroughs in 5-10 key core technologies, key materials, and intelligent equipment. A number of pilot platforms will be built in the fields of long-duration energy storage, energy storage safety, and system integration. Emphasis will be placed on creating one new energy storage industry innovation base and nurturing 5 leading enterprises with international influence in the new energy storage industry chain, with the industry's revenue exceeding 60 billion yuan. The supply capacity of new energy storage products that are high in safety, reliability, efficiency, lifespan, and economic feasibility will continue to improve. Demonstration applications of semi-solid/solid-state batteries and flow batteries will be carried out in new energy storage industry demonstration areas. Efforts will be made to apply new energy storage in scenarios such as distributed new energy, ultra-(fast) charging stations, rail transit, and data centers, and to accelerate the construction of virtual power plants.

Diversified technological innovation in new energy storage will be promoted. In the field of electrochemical energy storage, research and development, as well as verification of flow battery bipolar plate material design, forming process, high-power stacks, and large-capacity energy storage unit module systems will be accelerated. Breakthroughs in domesticized membrane and carbon felt, carbon cloth electrode technologies will be made to promote the commercial application of flow battery energy storage technology.

The document mentions that the development of Beijing's new energy storage industry has a good foundation, but it also faces some problems. The industrialization of large-scale electrochemical energy storage battery production lines is difficult due to energy consumption index restrictions, and there is a lack of local industrial support for the transformation of technological achievements; policies, standards, and business models adapted to the development of new energy storage still need to be further improved, and the application scenarios are not rich enough; there is no effective coordination in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region in terms of the transformation of new energy storage scientific and technological achievements, complementary industrial advantages, and joint construction of application scenarios, etc.

This is the second special document on energy storage issued by Beijing after the Dahongmen accident. On November 24, 2023, the Beijing Economic and Information Bureau released the "Several Policy Measures to Support the Development of the New Energy Storage Industry in Beijing" (hereinafter referred to as "Several Measures"), which proposed specific financial reward amounts for industrial development and project implementation. Combining the two documents, it can be found that Beijing's support and planning for the development of the flow battery industry are relatively more, and the application of energy storage is still quite cautious.

Since the "14th Five-Year Plan", the national level has regarded flow batteries as one of the important technological routes for the development of new energy storage, and has successively introduced a series of support measures from multiple dimensions such as top-level design, technological innovation, and standard system. At the beginning of 2024, the National Energy Administration announced 56 new energy storage pilot demonstration projects, among which, there are 9 flow battery energy storage demonstration projects with a total scale exceeding 900MW/4300MWh, mainly involving all-vanadium flow batteries, iron-based flow batteries, and zinc-iron flow battery energy storage demonstration projects. Subsequently, support will be provided by including them in the national major project library and the list of the first (set) of major technical equipment in the energy field.
Against the backdrop of carbon reduction and carbon neutrality, in recent years, China has continuously increased its investment in the research and development of flow battery technology. The key areas for the layout of new energy storage technologies with inherent safety, large capacity, low cost, and long lifespan are accelerating. Currently, all regions are intensifying their efforts to promote new energy storage, which can be categorized into three types based on their endowments: First, there are innovation-driven regions represented by Beijing and Dalian. Beijing benefits from its rich resources of scientific research institutions and the concentration of major state-owned energy enterprises, leading the nation in the R&D of core flow battery technologies and the localization of critical materials. Scientific research institutions such as the Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics under the Chinese Academy of Sciences continue to conduct technical breakthroughs, accelerating progress in key fields, especially in terms of all-vanadium redox flow batteries. With China's abundant reserves and production capacity of vanadium (both ranking first globally), this technology has become the most mature flow battery technology in the country. Its technological development is internationally leading, and both the stacks and critical raw materials are completely self-controlled. Second, there are resource-guided regions represented by Sichuan, Hebei Chengde, Shaanxi, Hunan, etc. Relying on their abundant vanadium resources, these regions have proposed to accelerate the development of vanadium flow battery energy storage. Among them, Sichuan issued the country's first special policy for the vanadium flow battery industry, Implementation Plan for Promoting High-Quality Development of Vanadium Redox Flow Battery Energy Storage Industry. Panzhihua City even aims to establish itself as the Capital of Chinese Vanadium Energy. Third, there are market-driven regions represented by Shanghai, Zhejiang, Guangdong, Jiangsu, etc. These regions rely on a rich market demand for industrial and commercial energy storage to expedite the layout of the flow battery industry chain.
Flow batteries hold an important position in the new energy storage market with their unique advantages. They use aqueous electrolytes, with no risk of combustion or explosion, and have inherent safety advantages; capacity and power can be decoupled, and can be flexibly configured according to needs; geographical location restrictions are small, construction period is short, and easy to deploy; the longer the energy storage time, the better the economy, and other advantages are suitable for various application scenarios with high requirements for energy storage safety, such as oil and gas field stations, chemical plant parks, highway service areas, airports, etc. With the continuous innovation and breakthroughs in various technological routes, the industrial ecosystem will also continue to improve, the market scale will continue to expand, and the cost reduction space and development prospects of flow batteries are optimistic!

Product Series：

Vanadium Redox Flow Battery - Energy Storage System / BMS

Liquid Flow Battery - Non-Fluorinated Ion Exchange Membrane

LAB Series R&D Demonstration Equipment

NeLCOS® Energy Storage System Levelized Cost of Energy Calculator