China’s operational new-type energy storage fleet reached 167 GW/435 GWh at the end of September 2026, up 63% from a year earlier, according to National Energy Administration data presented at its quarterly press conference on Oct. 30.
The category includes electrochemical, compressed-air and other emerging storage systems, but excludes conventional pumped hydro. Capacity stood at 135.93 GW/351.12 GWh at the end of 2025, indicating a net increase of about 31 GW/84 GWh during the first nine months of 2026.
Utilization also improved. Average storage duration rose to 2.61 hours, about 0.27 hours more than a year earlier, while equivalent utilization reached roughly 915 hours over the nine-month period, an increase of about 10 hours from the same period in 2025. The figures suggest that China’s storage expansion is being accompanied by changes in system configuration and use, rather than by installed capacity growth alone.
The NEA attributed rapid development to government policies, technological innovation, industrial supply chains and rising demand for flexibility in the power system. China’s combined wind and solar capacity exceeded 2.01 TW at the end of September, equal to about 48.7% of total installed power capacity. As variable renewable generation grows, storage is needed to absorb surplus electricity, shift output to higher-demand periods and provide fast-response grid services.
The market’s structure is changing as well. Official 2025 figures showed that independent storage facilities accounted for 51.2% of cumulative new-type installations. Projects rated at 100 MW or above made up 72% of installed capacity, and systems with durations of at least four hours represented 27.6%. Lithium-ion batteries remained dominant at about 96% of installed new-type capacity, while compressed-air, flow batteries and other technologies continued to expand.
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, 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 at 300 GW by 2030, with greater emphasis on longer-duration systems, grid-forming capabilities and operational efficiency.
Storage’s growing role 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, storage supplied up to 12.25 GW, equivalent to 33% of the grid’s electricity demand at the time. Such cases illustrate how storage can provide short-term balancing capacity in systems with high renewable penetration.