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

China Energy Storage Network – Image News – Commercial and Industrial Energy Storage Soars in Q1 2025

Since the beginning of 2023, driven by policy support, technological advancements, and increasing market demand, the commercial and industrial energy storage market has experienced explosive growth, continuing its upward trend into 2025. This article summarizes the installed capacity, bidding prices, registration status, capacity layout, and product innovation trends in the domestic commercial and industrial energy storage market for the first quarter of 2025.

Installed Capacity Increases by 54.85%

According to incomplete statistics from the CESA Energy Storage Application Branch Database, the user-side commercial and industrial energy storage installed capacity reached 776.13MW/1924.71MWh in Q1 2025, marking a year-on-year increase of 54.85%. Of this, standalone commercial and industrial energy storage projects accounted for 635.13MW/1518.87MWh, representing 78.91% of the total capacity. Projects involving storage charging, solar-storage charging, emergency power sources, distributed photovoltaic storage, and microgrid storage amounted to 141MW/405.84MWh, making up 21.09%.

Geographically, Jiangsu, Guangdong, and Zhejiang continue to lead the commercial and industrial storage market. With the rise of diversified applications such as distributed photovoltaic storage and microgrids, regions like Anhui, Henan, and Xinjiang are increasingly active.

Notably, in early February, the 50MW/200MWh microgrid energy storage project in the northern foothill of Tianshan by Huadian was officially put into operation. This project is located nearly 80 kilometers from the nearest power source and employs an innovative coordinated support work model that ensures stable power supply to the load. The project features three operational modes: off-grid, grid-connected, and grid-forming, equipped with functions for active voltage and frequency support, fault ride-through, and black start capabilities, making it a world-class benchmark for microgrid energy storage projects. Shangneng Electric provided 20 sets of the new generation 2.5MW grid-forming centralized conversion and boosting units, each consisting of 2 units of 1.25MW centralized PCS, employing second-generation VSG grid-forming technology.

Over 90% of Projects via EPC Contracting

In the analysis of the bidding market, the user-side commercial and industrial energy storage EPC (including DC side equipment) and system procurement scale reached 1.23GW/3.71GWh in Q1 2025, with the EPC (including DC side equipment) procurement scale reaching 1.79GW/3.29GWh, representing 91.13% of the total capacity. This indicates that over 90% of commercial and industrial storage projects were procured through EPC contracting. Projects were primarily concentrated in provinces such as Jiangsu, Henan, Anhui, Zhejiang, Shandong, Fujian, and Sichuan, with both Jiangsu and Henan exceeding 1GWh in procurement capacity.

In terms of owners and bidders, companies like Jiyuan Yucang Energy Storage, Shuyuan Thermal Power, Guangzhou Energy Storage Group, Taifeng New Energy, and China Telecom all had procurement scales exceeding 100MWh in Q1 2025. Notably, Jiyuan Yucang Energy Storage Co., Ltd. led with a procurement scale of 200MW/800MWh for its vehicle-grid interactive heavy truck charging station project, which includes a 100MW/200MWh lithium iron phosphate storage system and a 100MW/600MWh vanadium flow battery storage system.

Average Winning Price at 0.6659 Yuan/Wh

Regarding the bidding prices, the EPC bidding prices for lithium battery commercial and industrial energy storage projects in Q1 2025 ranged from 0.7868-1.5 Yuan/Wh, with an average price of 1.1029 Yuan/Wh and a weighted average winning price of 1.0133 Yuan/Wh. The lowest bid came from Huiru Technology in Qianshan City for a 25MW/100MWh user-side energy storage project, which utilized an integrated contracting model for the entire process. The project was tendered by Boda New Energy Co., Ltd., and the bid was 7.868 million Yuan, translating to 0.7868 Yuan/Wh, marking the lowest bid for commercial storage EPC in Q1 2025.

The lowest winning price was for the Hunan Liangtian Cement Co., Ltd. energy storage project, which involved constructing a 5MW/15MWh energy storage unit. In March, Runjian Co., Ltd. won the bid with a price of 12.00359 million Yuan, equivalent to 0.8002 Yuan/Wh.

Registration Scale Grows by 234.36%

In Q1 2025, the domestic user-side commercial and industrial energy storage projects that received new registrations totaled 2474. Among these, 1758 projects disclosed specific construction scales, totaling 6.53GW/16.16GWh, representing a year-on-year growth of 234.36% compared to Q1 2024. Of these, standalone commercial energy storage projects accounted for 1902 new registrations, making up 76.88% of the total, with a total scale of 6.1GW/15.2GWh, which constitutes 94.07% of the capacity.

In terms of initial investment prices, the initial investment prices for standalone commercial energy storage registered projects in Q1 2025 ranged from 0.86-1.58 Yuan/Wh, with 77.55% of the projects falling within this range.

Jiangsu Leads with 59.17% of Registrations

Jiangsu Province registered 604 new commercial energy storage investment projects in Q1 2025, with a capacity reaching 3.86GW/9.56GWh, accounting for 59.17% of the nationwide new registrations, ranking first in the country. Among these, over 20 projects exceeded 100MWh in capacity, with the largest single project exceeding 800MWh. Guangdong’s user-side registered 830MW/2188MWh, accounting for 13.54%; Zhejiang’s user-side registered 922MW/1893MWh, accounting for 11.71%, ranking second and third nationally, respectively.

Capacity Expansion and Product Development Trends

With the development of the commercial and industrial energy storage market, domestic energy storage capacity continues to expand. In Q1 2025, 8 commercial and industrial energy storage-related production projects updated their dynamics, with 6 announcing design annual production capacities totaling 45.2GWh and total investments of 9.4335 billion Yuan.

• Ganfeng Lithium has commenced the construction of its new lithium battery and energy storage headquarters project, with a total investment of 5 billion Yuan and an annual production value expected to reach 11 billion Yuan.
• Ningbo Deye Energy Storage has completed registration for its 2GWh commercial storage production line project and its 1.2GWh energy storage battery and integrated system project.
• Weilan New Energy has launched its first semi-solid storage battery production line in Guangdong, which is a key project under the energy development plan for the 14th Five-Year Plan.

Trends in Product Development

According to the CESA Energy Storage Application Branch Database, in Q1 2025, 17 enterprises released 24 types of commercial and industrial energy storage cabinets. As the application scenarios for commercial energy storage expand and diversify, the design and development of energy storage products are becoming increasingly refined and specialized.

1. Large Scale: The trend is moving towards larger energy storage cabinets, with 8 out of the 23 newly launched cabinets in Q1 2025 having capacities above 400kWh.
2. High Capacity Cells: New products generally feature cells above 300Ah.
3. Liquid Cooling Dominance: Over 80% of the new energy storage cabinets released in Q1 2025 utilize liquid cooling methods.
4. Increased Integration: Modular designs have become mainstream, with many new products adopting integrated designs.
5. AI Empowerment: The implementation of AI in new commercial energy storage products is gradually increasing.
6. PV-Storage Integration: The scenarios for commercial energy storage are increasingly diverse, catering to various commercial needs.

In summary, in Q1 2025, the domestic commercial and industrial energy storage market exhibited strong growth across installed capacity, bidding markets, registration status, industry chain layout, and new product releases. Regions such as Jiangsu, Guangdong, and Zhejiang continue to lead, while emerging markets are rapidly rising. Despite facing challenges such as time-of-use pricing adjustments and increasing market competition, continuous technological breakthroughs in energy storage and expanding application scenarios will inject strong momentum into the industry. In the future, commercial and industrial energy storage will play an even greater role in the digital and green low-carbon transformation.