Integrating Source, Grid, Load, and Storage: Best Practices for Overcoming Energy Challenges in Industrial Parks

Integrated Energy Systems of Source, Grid, Load, and Storage: The Best Practices to Address Energy Challenges in Industrial Parks

As time-of-use electricity pricing adjusts and the electricity market continues to evolve, the revenue-generating capabilities of distributed photovoltaics and commercial energy storage are facing significant challenges. These policy adjustments reveal the true essence and urgent demand for the integrated energy systems of source, grid, load, and storage in the industrial and commercial sectors. Huawei is once again at the forefront of the industry, providing exemplary solutions in Jiangsu, enabling the practical application of these integrated systems.

In recent years, electricity consumption in China’s industrial and commercial sectors has been steadily increasing. According to the latest data from the China Electricity Council, the average daily electricity consumption for the entire society in the first quarter of 2025 grew by 3.7% year-on-year, with particularly rapid growth in high-tech and equipment manufacturing. For instance, electricity consumption in the manufacturing of new energy vehicles surged by 40.6% year-on-year, while the production of wind power equipment in general machinery manufacturing saw a remarkable increase of 46.4%. Under the dual carbon goals, these high energy-consuming enterprises are entering a period of accelerated transformation. To expedite their green and low-carbon transition, many choose to invest in distributed photovoltaics to enhance their renewable energy utilization. However, they still face several challenges in energy consumption, particularly three key issues:

• First, macro policy changes are increasing revenue uncertainty, driving the accelerated implementation of integrated energy systems. The newly released management measures for distributed photovoltaic development and construction specify requirements for both large and general commercial photovoltaic grid connections. In some provinces, new low valley electricity prices during midday may lead to a more than 20% decrease in photovoltaic revenue, while adjustments in peak and valley prices add to the uncertainty of commercial energy storage returns. Therefore, promoting distributed photovoltaic systems to increase self-consumption through integrated energy systems and participating in power trading and grid scheduling through virtual power plants has become a primary development model in the commercial sector.
• Second, the safety of photovoltaic and storage equipment poses risks to both assets and energy consumption security within parks. Currently, there are many companies involved in photovoltaic storage, offering products of varying quality. Incidents such as thermal runaway in energy storage, fires in photovoltaic systems, or electric vehicle fires due to charging station leakage are frequently reported. The rapid expansion of photovoltaics exacerbates grid fluctuations, increasing system adjustment pressure, and local areas may face grid overload due to capacity bottlenecks. Additionally, new energy power stations urgently need to enhance their cybersecurity measures to prevent user privacy leaks or cyberattacks that could lead to widespread power outages.
• Third, the low level of digitalization in energy management within parks fails to meet the demands for efficient operation and intelligent scheduling in future virtual power plants. Most parks currently manage their energy equipment in a crude manner, with numerous dispersed photovoltaic and storage devices leading to high costs and inefficiencies in manual inspections. Moreover, the lack of synergy among photovoltaic, storage, and charging systems results in low utilization rates and poor overall benefits. With the ongoing reforms in the electricity market and the advancement of the electricity spot market, parks urgently need to achieve precise control over comprehensive energy through unified platforms, enabling distributed energy and demand-side resources to participate collectively in the electricity market. This will help users optimize their electricity structure, reduce costs, and enhance the operational efficiency of photovoltaic, storage, and charging systems to meet carbon reduction targets.

Beyond high energy-consuming industrial parks, the transportation sector is also at a critical juncture in its low-carbon transition. The widespread and uncoordinated charging of electric vehicles could significantly widen the load variances in distribution networks, heighten power fluctuations during specific periods, and even pose risks of transformer overload. This pressing need has opened market opportunities for the integrated model of photovoltaic, storage, and charging and calls for enhanced collaborative capabilities among source, grid, load, and storage to steadily increase local consumption ratios.

Thanks to intensified policies and deeper integration throughout the electricity industry chain, the integrated systems of source, grid, load, and storage are rapidly advancing toward a larger-scale and market-oriented phase by 2025. As of now, Henan has announced nine batches of integrated projects totaling 415, with plans to establish over 1,000 demonstration projects by 2027. This year, Shandong has also released implementation details and project lists for integrated energy systems, requiring local consumption, green electricity trading, virtual power plants, and self-consumption models to be executed. As a leading province in new energy, Jiangsu is at the forefront, having released guidelines for zero-carbon park construction that emphasize accelerating the digital and intelligent development of microgrids and promoting the reasonable integration of new energy, loads, and storage into microgrids.

This requirement pushes the conceptualization of integrated energy systems into reality. In response to the energy challenges faced by parks, entering the source, grid, load, and storage track has become a new opportunity of the times.

Integration of Photovoltaics and Storage: An Upgraded Challenge

The integrated systems of source, grid, load, and storage connect every aspect of the electricity system, and transitioning from a model of “source following load” to “source, grid, load, and storage” requires enhancing various energy sources’ collaborative operational capabilities while ensuring system safety and stability. This transformation represents a comprehensive technological and market revolution. Recently, at the 2025 Huawei China Digital Energy Innovation Summit held in Jiangsu, Huawei Digital Energy unveiled its integrated solutions for source, grid, load, and storage in commercial settings. According to Cai Xu, the head of Huawei’s Commercial Expansion Department for Intelligent Photovoltaics, this solution can achieve excellent safety, long-term revenue, and enable digital empowerment for parks’ low-carbon transitions.

From the source perspective, distributed photovoltaics inherently face challenges of volatility and consumption difficulties. Energy storage is key to resolving these issues. Huawei’s integrated photovoltaic and storage solution maximizes self-consumption rates, especially as reforms in photovoltaic power trading and the electricity spot market progress. However, to truly enhance operational revenue, the quality of photovoltaic and energy storage equipment must be exceptionally high. As a critical support for bi-directional energy transfer, energy storage needs to demonstrate high reliability and efficiency. Huawei has previously launched the world’s first wind-liquid intelligent cooling commercial energy storage product, allowing energy storage devices to adaptively regulate based on environmental temperature, switching freely among three operational modes: active liquid cooling, natural air cooling, and waste heat utilization. This innovation can reduce auxiliary electricity losses by 30%, significantly improving the operational efficiency of storage systems, while ensuring reliable power supply, superior power quality, and strong load capacity to support high-quality electricity consumption across various scenarios.

Additionally, the new round of reforms in the electricity market provides innovative entities like virtual power plants with more avenues for expanding revenue. This necessitates that energy management platforms possess intelligent scheduling and efficient response capabilities to support the aggregation of distributed photovoltaic and storage resources into virtual power plants. By employing optimal operational strategies, these entities can respond in real-time to grid peak-shaving and frequency modulation services to generate higher returns. To this end, Huawei, leveraging its big data and AI algorithms combined with integrated scheduling capabilities, has partnered with various entities to launch a smart energy management platform that coordinates precise schedules across different energy types, optimally optimizing electricity usage and maximizing resource value for owners and parks to jointly achieve their green and low-carbon objectives.

Zero Carbon Models: Turning Vision into Reality

As a pioneer province in new energy, Jiangsu is a testing ground for various energy initiatives. Huawei has collaborated with Huadian Jiangsu Company to create a model case for integrated energy systems in Wucheng, Changzhou. This modern park is home to several technology-based enterprises, particularly in smart manufacturing and new materials that face dual challenges of high energy costs and low-carbon transitions. Utilizing its integrated energy solutions, Huawei transformed this park into a zero-carbon park. The park installed a total of 1.28MW of photovoltaic capacity, 1.08MW/2.15MWh of energy storage, and a fully liquid-cooled supercharger. Through Huawei’s comprehensive energy management platform, these resources can be flexibly utilized to precisely match the park’s energy demands. Moreover, with AI technology enhancing project returns by an additional 10%, the park has become a benchmark for digital and intelligent transformation.

This project has received high praise from investors; according to Xia Wei, general manager of Jiangsu Huadian Energy Sales Company, it is expected to generate 1.7 million kWh of green electricity annually, achieving almost 100% self-consumption through the photovoltaic-storage collaboration. It is noteworthy that Huawei also implemented its liquid-cooled supercharging technology at this site to facilitate the consumption of green electricity via the integration of charging piles, while the energy storage component reduces the need for power capacity expansion at charging facilities. This model of integrating photovoltaic, storage, and charging is already a familiar practice for Huawei.

Meanwhile, Huawei has strategically aligned itself with Jiangsu’s green electricity development trend, expanding its focus to include intelligent charging networks and AI-driven data centers in addition to smart photovoltaics. In 2023, Huawei participated in constructing Jiangsu’s first urban “photovoltaic-storage-charging” demonstration charging station. This facility features five sets of Huawei’s fully liquid-cooled supercharging equipment, two 600kW supercharging guns, and fifty-four 250kW supercharging guns, simultaneously accommodating the charging needs of fifty-six parking spaces. The Huawei supercharging technology supports a 200-1000V charging platform, enabling a charging experience of “one second for one kilometer.” Furthermore, Huawei’s smart photovoltaic technology is expected to supply approximately 240,000 kWh of green electricity annually from the photovoltaic canopies, with the supporting storage system facilitating the use of renewable energy for electric vehicles while leveraging time-of-use electricity pricing to enhance the operational revenue of the charging station.

Currently, Huawei Digital Energy is collaborating with more upstream and downstream enterprises and solution partners to promote the implementation of “photovoltaic-storage-charging” across the country, advancing the green and low-carbon development of the transportation sector.

In the context of AI driving the digital economy, computational power has become the core driver of social development and economic growth, while energy consumption and carbon emissions from data centers have become increasingly prominent issues. Therefore, establishing green data centers is a critical direction for resolving these challenges. One such example is the Changzhou campus of Hohai University in Jiangsu, where Huawei provided a comprehensive solution involving “architectural optimization, smart devices, and platform construction.” Through two 600K modular UPS5000-E units and six sets of FusionModule2000 smart micro-modules, along with ninety-two cabinets and eighteen precision air conditioning units, this approach eliminates the need for separate power and weak current rooms, simplifies structures for easier maintenance, meets environmental standards, and achieves high efficiency with low carbon emissions. The modular design ensures rapid delivery, creating a stable, reliable, secure, high-speed, and flexible campus network.

Conclusion

2025 serves as a critical milestone for achieving peak carbon emissions in China and marks a vital period to assess the effectiveness of optimizing the energy structure and innovating green and low-carbon technologies. At this significant juncture, Huawei is leveraging its mature technological framework and innovative models to accelerate the practical application of zero-carbon parks and promote the green transition across various industries through its comprehensive integrated energy system solutions.