China added more battery storage capacity in 2018 than all previous years combined. At the beginning of the year it had 389 MW of battery capacity to store excess energy on the grid and has added 340 MW more already. The country’s battery capacity is dwarfed, however, by the 30 GW of pumped hydro storage capacity. Neither figure includes the capacity of electric vehicle batteries, although CNESA (the China Energy Storage Alliance) said the country built 40 GW worth of batteries for cars and buses last year.
China added more battery storage capacity in 2018 than all previous years combined. At the beginning of the year it had 389 MW of battery capacity to store excess energy on the grid and has added 340 MW more already. The country’s battery capacity is dwarfed, however, by the 30 GW of pumped hydro storage capacity. Neither figure includes the capacity of electric vehicle batteries, although the China Energy Storage Alliance (CNESA) said the country built 40 GW worth of batteries for cars and buses last year.