Surge in Commercial and Industrial Energy Storage Market in Q1 2025: Growth Trends and Insights

Commercial and Industrial Energy Storage Market Surges in Q1 2025

Since the beginning of 2023, the commercial and industrial (C&I) energy storage market has experienced explosive growth driven by a combination of policy support, technological advancements, and market demand. This upward trend is expected to continue into 2025. This article reviews the installation capacity, bidding prices, registration status, capacity layout, and product innovation trends within the domestic C&I energy storage market for the first quarter of 2025.

Q1 Installation Capacity Increases by 54.85%

According to incomplete statistics from the CESA Energy Storage Application Branch industry database, the user-side installation capacity of commercial and industrial energy storage reached 776.13MW/1924.71MWh in Q1 2025, representing a year-on-year growth of 54.85%. Among this, standalone C&I energy storage projects accounted for 635.13MW/1518.87MWh, making up 78.91% of the total capacity. Projects incorporating charging/storage, distributed solar power storage, and microgrid storage amounted to 141MW/405.84MWh, representing 21.09% of the total.

In terms of geographical distribution, Jiangsu, Guangdong, and Zhejiang continue to lead the C&I energy storage market. With the rise of diversified applications such as distributed photovoltaic storage and microgrids, regions like Anhui, Henan, and Xinjiang are becoming increasingly active. Notably, in early February, the 50MW/200MWh microgrid energy storage project by Huadian Tianshan North Foothills was put into operation. This project is located nearly 80 kilometers from the nearest power source, and its innovative collaborative support work mode ensures stable power supply to the load. The project operates in three modes: off-grid, grid-connected, and microgrid, equipped with features such as voltage frequency support, fault ride-through, and black start capabilities, making it a benchmark for world-class microgrid energy storage projects.

Shangneng Electric provided 20 sets of the new generation 2.5MW grid-connected centralized inverter boosting integrated units for this project, with each unit composed of two 1.25MW centralized PCS components, utilizing the second-generation VSG grid-connected technology.

In terms of participating companies, several entities including Xingyuan Energy Investment, Faro Power, Ruide Energy, Yishite, Chiku New Energy, Sunshine Power, Hengyun Energy Storage, Huayuan ZhiGuang, Lixing Energy, Star Charging, Zhongshu Energy, Shidai Xingyun, Xingjiyun Energy, and Yongtai Shuneng all launched multiple C&I storage projects in Q1 2025.

Over 90% of Projects Utilize EPC Contracting

In the bidding market analysis, the user-side C&I energy storage EPC (including DC side equipment) and system procurement in Q1 2025 reached 1.23GW/3.71GWh. The EPC procurement scale alone was as high as 1.79GW/3.29GWh, accounting for 91.13% of the total capacity, meaning that over 90% of C&I storage projects were procured through the EPC contracting model. The projects were mainly concentrated in Jiangsu, Henan, Anhui, Zhejiang, Shandong, Fujian, and Sichuan provinces, with Jiangsu and Henan each exceeding 1GWh in procurement capacity.

Looking at the main contracting entities, companies such as Jiyuan Yucuo Energy Storage, Suyuan Thermal Power, Guangzhou Energy Storage Group, Taifu New Energy, Guosheng Holdings, China Telecom, Hongqiao Garden, Nenghui New Energy, Shandong High-speed Group, Xingyuan Energy Investment, Woheng New Energy, and Boda New Energy all had procurement scales exceeding 100MWh in Q1 2025. Among these, Henan Jiyuan Yucuo Energy Storage Co., Ltd. had the largest procurement scale, with its bidding project for a vehicle-network interactive heavy-duty charging station featuring a combined storage capacity of 200MW/800MWh, including a 100MW/200MWh lithium iron phosphate energy storage system and a 100MW/600MWh vanadium flow energy storage system. At the end of March, China Energy Construction Group, Flow Energy Storage Technology Co., Ltd., and the First Design Institute of China Machinery jointly won the EPC bid for this project at 1.93945 billion yuan, equating to a unit price of 2.4243 yuan/Wh.

Additionally, Jiangsu Guangyuan Electric Construction Co., Ltd., Southern Power Grid Electric Technology Co., Ltd., Anhui Tezhu Electric Engineering Co., Ltd., and Guangdong Zhenshen Electric Design Co., Ltd. formed a consortium with a bid scale exceeding 300MWh in Q1 2025. China Energy Construction Jiangsu Institute and China Energy Construction Zhejiang Thermal Power Consortium, Lanjun New Energy Technology Co., Ltd., and Zhejiang Provincial Communication Industry Service Co., Ltd. consortiums also had bidding scales exceeding 200MWh. Notably, on March 19, Keda Guochuang successfully won the bid for the China Telecom (Anhui) Intelligent Computing Center energy storage project (Phase 1). This project is located in the Nankang Economic Development Zone of Hefei, Anhui Province, equipped with a 25MW/200MWh lithium iron phosphate battery energy storage container, aimed at peak shaving and reducing electricity costs, with an estimated procurement amount of 373.9998 million yuan (including tax), using a “cooperative leasing” model.

As the world rapidly develops in a digital direction, the adoption of advanced energy storage technologies ensures uninterrupted operation while promoting energy efficiency and sustainability. In the future, more energy storage systems will play crucial roles in data centers and intelligent computing centers.

Average Winning Bid Price for C&I Storage Systems at 0.6659 yuan/Wh

In terms of bid/invitation prices, the EPC bids for lithium battery C&I energy storage projects in Q1 2025 were mainly in the range of 0.7868-1.5 yuan/Wh, with an average price of 1.1029 yuan/Wh and a weighted average bid price of 1.0133 yuan/Wh. The lowest bid price came from the 25MW/100MWh user-side energy storage project EPC by Huiru Technology in Qianshan City, which adopted an integrated contracting approach. The project’s bidder, Qianshan Boda New Energy Co., Ltd., had a bid of 78.681457 million yuan, equating to a unit price of 0.7868 yuan/Wh, marking the lowest bid price for C&I energy storage EPC in Q1 2025. China Electric Power Construction Jiangxi Electric Construction and Zhonggeng Engineering jointly won the bid for this project at 81 million yuan, equating to a unit price of 0.81 yuan/Wh.

The lowest bid price for the EPC project of the energy storage system for Hunan Liangtian Cement Co., Ltd. was 0.8002 yuan/Wh, with a bid of 12.00359 million yuan for the construction of a 5MW/15MWh energy storage unit.

In Q1 2025, the bids for lithium battery C&I energy storage systems ranged from 0.4493-1.0487 yuan/Wh, with an average price of 0.6756 yuan/Wh and a weighted average bid price of 0.6659 yuan/Wh. The lowest bid price came from Xinjiang Tianlong Mining’s distributed photovoltaic project (Phase I, II, III), with each phase supporting 1.5MW/6MWh, totaling 4.5MW/18MWh. Yishite Group Co., Ltd. had a bid of 8.0865 million yuan, becoming the second bidding candidate with a unit price of 0.4493 yuan/Wh, marking a new low for C&I storage system bids in Q1 2025. Xinyuan Zhichu won the bid with 8.775 million yuan, equating to a unit price of 0.4875 yuan/Wh, marking the lowest bid price for C&I storage systems in Q1 2025.

Registration Scale Grows by 234.36%, with Jiangsu Accounting for 59.17% of Total

According to the incomplete statistics from the CESA Energy Storage Application Branch industry database, in Q1 2025, a total of 2474 new user-side C&I energy storage projects were registered. Among these, 1758 projects disclosed specific construction scales, totaling 6.53GW/16.16GWh, which is a 234.36% increase in capacity compared to Q1 2024.

From the configuration perspective, 1902 newly registered standalone C&I energy storage projects accounted for 76.88%, with a total scale of 6.1GW/15.2GWh, making up 94.07% of the total capacity. Among these, 1025 projects reported an initial investment amount totaling 5.448 billion yuan. Additionally, projects including charging/storage, distributed photovoltaic storage, and microgrids saw 572 newly registered projects, accounting for 23.12% with a total scale of 431.17MW/958.7MWh, representing 5.93% of the total capacity.

In terms of initial unit price analysis, the initial investment unit prices for standalone C&I energy storage projects in Q1 2025 primarily ranged from 0.86-1.58 yuan/Wh, with 77.55% of the projects falling within this range.

Regionally, Jiangsu added 604 new registered C&I energy storage investment projects, with a scale of 3.86GW/9.56GWh, accounting for 59.17% of the national total, ranking first in the country. Among these, over 20 projects exceeded 100MWh in scale, and it also led in the number of large projects, with the largest single project exceeding 800MWh. Guangdong registered 830MW/2188MWh, accounting for 13.54%; while Zhejiang saw 922MW/1893MWh, accounting for 11.71%, ranking second and third in the country, respectively.

Jiangsu’s leadership in C&I energy storage can be attributed to several factors:

• Industrial Foundation Advantage: Jiangsu has a highly developed manufacturing industry with a concentration of foreign enterprises, resulting in numerous high-energy-consuming industrial parks. With the digital transformation of enterprises and increased demands for green production, the demand for C&I energy storage has rapidly grown.
• Policy Support: Jiangsu Province and various cities have introduced numerous supportive policies for energy storage. For instance, measures in the Suzhou Industrial Park state that photovoltaic projects with storage facilities installed after January 1, 2022, will receive a subsidy of 0.3 yuan/kWh for three years based on discharge volume.
• Pricing Mechanism Incentives: Jiangsu’s time-of-use electricity pricing policy provides significant arbitrage opportunities for C&I energy storage projects. For example, the average peak-to-valley price difference in Jiangsu is as high as 0.9 yuan/kWh in 2024, creating favorable conditions for energy storage.

Currently, Jiangsu relies on its solid industrial foundation, robust policy support, and relatively advantageous pricing mechanisms to become a benchmark region for the development of C&I energy storage in the country. However, it is noteworthy that in April 2025, the Jiangsu Development and Reform Commission released a notification regarding optimizing the time-of-use electricity price structure, which may have significant implications for the C&I energy storage industry.

Capacity Expansion Continues

With the growth of the C&I energy storage market, domestic production capacity continues to expand. According to incomplete statistics from the CESA Energy Storage Application Branch industry database, in Q1 2025, eight C&I energy storage-related production projects updated their dynamics, with six announcing design annual production capacities totaling 45.2GWh and total investments reaching 9.4335 billion yuan.

Projects include the commencement of Ganfeng Lithium’s 10GWh lithium battery and energy storage headquarters project, which is expected to engage in the research and production of lithium iron phosphate, semi-solid cells, portable outdoor energy storage, household storage, and C&I energy storage systems, with an estimated annual output value of 11 billion yuan.

Other projects include the construction of a 20GWh energy storage system key equipment upgrading project by Huasu Technology and a 2GWh C&I storage production line in Ningbo by Deyuan Storage, among others.

Product Development Trends

According to incomplete statistics from the CESA Energy Storage Application Branch industry database, in Q1 2025, 17 companies, including BYD, Sunshine Power, Hongzheng Storage, Singularity Energy, Huazhi Energy, China Mobile Energy, East Solar, Qingan Storage, and Changyuan Energy, launched 24 types of C&I energy storage cabinets. As the application scenarios for C&I energy storage become increasingly diverse, product design and development are trending toward greater specialization and refinement.

1. Large-scale Development: With the increase in large C&I energy storage projects, energy storage battery cabinets are also evolving toward larger sizes. Among the 23 newly released C&I energy storage cabinets, 8 have capacities exceeding 400kWh.
2. Integration of High-capacity Cells: New products generally incorporate cells with capacities over 300Ah. For example, Honeycomb Energy’s new 268KWh-CTR C&I energy storage system uses 350Ah cells.
3. Liquid Cooling Dominance: Over 80% of the newly released C&I energy storage products in Q1 2025 utilize liquid cooling methods.
4. Modular Design: Modular design has become mainstream due to transportation conditions, flexible configuration, installation cycles, and complex environments.
5. AI Empowerment: The application of the next generation of AI in new C&I energy storage products is gradually increasing, improving operational efficiency and reducing maintenance costs.
6. Integration with Solar Power: There is a growing trend of integrating solar energy with C&I storage, catering to a wide range of application scenarios.

Overall, in Q1 2025, the domestic C&I energy storage market demonstrated robust development across installation scale, bidding markets, registration status, industrial layout, and new product launches. Regions such as Jiangsu, Guangdong, and Zhejiang continue to lead, while emerging markets are accelerating their growth. Despite potential challenges such as adjustments in time-of-use pricing mechanisms and increased competition, continuous breakthroughs in storage technology and the expansion of application scenarios will provide strong momentum for the industry. In the future, C&I energy storage will play a greater role in the digital and green low-carbon transition.