The Dawn of Data-Driven Profitability in Energy Storage: Navigating Structural Changes and Market Opportunities

The era of mining energy storage data has arrived. This year, the new energy storage sector is undergoing a structural transformation due to the combined effects of Document No. 136 and Document No. 394. Document No. 136, issued at the beginning of the year, mandates that all new energy sources must enter the market, urging the energy storage industry to reassess its development model. Meanwhile, Document No. 394, released in April, clearly states that by the end of 2025, the electricity spot market must achieve full coverage. This indicates that both new energy and energy storage will undergo a genuine market adjustment. The future profitability of these sectors will largely depend on the operational capabilities of energy storage products, particularly their data service capabilities.

High-tech Electronics is once again at the forefront of the industry, setting a benchmark for “serving the energy storage industry” and even “supporting the development of the electricity sector.” With the new wave of reforms, the pricing mechanism—an important tool for regulating the electricity market—is significantly impacting the operational revenues of generation companies, electricity retailers, and users alike. Energy storage is evolving from a mere “technical tool” into a key flexible resource with independent market entity status, and its value urgently needs to be explored in depth.

Xie Jianjiang, the Deputy General Manager of High-tech Electronics, believes that the pain points currently faced by the new power system need to be addressed through enhanced service capabilities, particularly at the grid and user ends. On the grid side, there is a need for balancing services at the distribution network level to help stabilize operations. On the user side, services must be provided to distributed energy sources, energy storage assets, and park owners based on data to enhance value and ensure security, thereby assisting users in asset appreciation and safe operations.

As a company that has been deeply involved in energy storage for 27 years, High-tech Electronics possesses both hardware and software development capabilities. They can leverage data services in energy storage to enhance the operational capabilities of the power system across multiple fronts. Traditionally, energy storage companies have relied on arbitrage opportunities between peak and valley prices, resulting in a relatively fixed revenue model. However, in the spot market and various other electricity trading options, energy storage systems must first establish a decision-making logic that meets demand for trading systems. Otherwise, under policy changes, their revenue channels may narrow.

For instance, the electricity spot market clears every 15 minutes, necessitating that energy storage systems have price prediction capabilities to respond in real-time to price signals and adjust their charging and discharging strategies. “This high-frequency trading demands rapid response times, with energy storage systems needing to switch between charging and discharging within 100 milliseconds; otherwise, they risk incurring losses.” In such a market environment, if energy storage companies aim to maximize profits, they must rely on efficient data forecasting and intelligent operational management systems to ensure stability in fluctuating markets.

At the same time, the current power system is pushing for closer integration between the spot market and ancillary services market. Energy storage can participate in various markets, including capacity leasing and peak regulation services, and improve revenue potential through combined trading. However, this still requires energy storage to have complex trading service models in place. Currently, most energy storage companies lack specialized teams for researching electricity market policies or load models, forcing their products to adopt conservative strategies. This means that, even as their business models become more diverse, they may still only engage in peak-valley arbitrage, missing opportunities for higher returns, thus affecting the asset value for investors and owners.

High-tech Electronics can provide data forecasting services that include load predictions, spot price forecasts, and weather/photovoltaic output predictions. Additionally, based on a full lifecycle performance and economic assessment of energy storage systems, High-tech Electronics can offer scientific decision-making support for operational strategies, thus enhancing trading capabilities.

The virtual power plant is emerging as a significant opportunity, yet standardization and trading strategies need improvement. In recent years, commercial storage has gained popularity in regions like Jiangsu and Zhejiang due to its high flexibility and strong revenue potential. However, many new market trading opportunities present “scale” entry barriers that keep decentralized resources sidelined. As such, virtual power plants have become an important platform to break these limitations. Over the past year, multiple provinces have successively released documents regarding the management and operation of virtual power plants, but the differing regional rules indicate that the current construction and operation of virtual power plants still face challenges related to regional differences and standardization. Standardization is key to bridging operational capability gaps, as resources like distributed photovoltaics and commercial energy storage have yet to fully realize their value.

In this field, data aggregation capability is a critical entry point and prerequisite. With its forward-looking layout and deep understanding of the electricity market and energy storage, High-tech Electronics has established a first-mover advantage in the virtual power plant sector. Their open architecture supports the sharing of capabilities across three dimensions: resource access, scheduling algorithms, and market entry. This allows for easy integration of distributed generation, energy storage stations, and controllable loads. By utilizing standardized and self-service operations, they effectively lower the technical barriers for small and medium operators. Their three-tier architecture—from aggregation units to virtual units to virtual power plants—leverages digital imaging and intelligent scheduling engines to achieve localized deployment and cross-domain optimization of energy storage, generation, and load resources, providing nearby users with virtual power plant operational services that reduce operational costs.

Moreover, their data aggregation services include modules such as access rule engines, alarm rules, data models, and open interfaces, allowing for flexible adaptation and seamless integration with devices and platforms. After addressing industry pain points like resource integration, technical responsiveness, data management, market access, and settlement, companies can also participate in spot trading and ancillary services within virtual power plants. Additionally, by incorporating AI to enhance intelligent scheduling capabilities, High-tech Electronics has realized deep integration of data models and rule engines, driving data exchange across multiple scenarios, thus enabling market participants to respond more effectively and enhance transaction efficiency.

Since the beginning of 2024, High-tech Electronics has launched a nationwide initiative to establish qualifications for virtual power plants, having already obtained operational qualifications in areas like Zhejiang and Jiangsu, and is expanding into regions such as Shanghai and Anhui to serve more users and benefit more distributed photovoltaics and commercial energy storage owners. Notably, virtual power plants, as a new trading entity aimed at the electricity load side, differ fundamentally from traditional centralized power generation units and independent energy storage, creating certain barriers. Traditional EMS companies may lack the specialized technical capabilities for managing electricity loads. High-tech Electronics has achieved breakthroughs based on its management experience with battery storage technologies.

The value of energy storage is shifting towards AI, enhancing both safety and operational capabilities. As Xie Jianjiang mentioned, vast amounts of data are vital sources for AI diagnostics and operational maintenance, as well as crucial for trading decisions. High-tech Electronics is a leader in this aspect. Leveraging its advantages in BMS, High-tech Electronics can integrate various battery data and utilize AI multimodal technology to optimize system health assessments, ensuring safe and reliable operation of energy storage devices, ultimately safeguarding reliable returns.

Furthermore, by deeply embedding these data into the formulation of energy management strategies, High-tech Electronics can develop more precise and adaptable energy management strategies for different scenarios. Their smart operation and maintenance model significantly improves the intelligent management level and operational efficiency of sites. High-tech Electronics can carry out in-depth evaluations of energy storage system operational cycles, depths, periods, decay rates, performance, health status, and output factors. This multi-dimensional assessment provides the basis for financial evaluation of energy storage assets, leading to efficient management of transaction strategy models and protecting reasonable returns for owners and investors.

Based on a comprehensive security protection solution that includes safety diagnostic models, safety valve sensor technology, detection capabilities, and flexible protection, State Grid Yingda Insurance and High-tech Electronics are researching and planning data-driven energy storage insurance products. To address current operational maintenance challenges, such as delayed responses and non-standard data, High-tech Electronics innovatively established a “real-time diagnosis at the edge + in-depth analysis in the cloud” intelligent operational maintenance system. They deploy lightweight diagnostic modules at the equipment level for millisecond-level anomaly monitoring and fault prediction, while integrating an expert knowledge base and AI analysis engine in the cloud to provide precise fault diagnostics and operational maintenance decision-making support.

However, as more participants enter the commercial energy storage market, the industry has exposed issues related to project investment and operational processes, with investment and payment collection being a key pain point. It is understood that the investment settlement process for energy storage involves multiple stages, including regional pricing, classified management, and intermediary fee configurations, making it difficult to ensure data reliability and compliance. This not only increases the financial management costs for companies but also leads to low electricity bill recovery efficiency, affecting cash flow and project investment enthusiasm.

To resolve this issue, High-tech Electronics has introduced a full-process settlement service that supports regional pricing and classified management, integrating flexible configurations for intermediary fees and utilizing blockchain technology to ensure data reliability and compliance. After generating automatic bills, they undergo an approval process involving manual and automated steps. This is followed by confirmations from owners and parks, and they support online payments through Alipay. Furthermore, High-tech Electronics is exploring financing solutions for electricity bill data to help park users secure low-interest loans and improve electricity bill recovery efficiency. By building asset evaluation models based on energy storage device operational data, they provide a one-stop service from asset evaluation to insurance and trading. The platform employs Ant Chain technology to ensure data rights and integrates 20 years of experience in power system safety into product design, offering safe and reliable settlement solutions for commercial energy storage.

High-tech Electronics’ data service system is built on the High-tech Microgrid Operation Management Platform as a digital foundation, innovatively constructing a five-dimensional closed-loop of “data aggregation – forecasting – diagnosis – trading – settlement.” Through an open platform architecture, they deeply integrate industry chain resources, achieving “data aggregation empowerment, and co-existing service value,” providing safe, reliable, stable, and economical operational services for the power grid and users. In the wave of energy digitalization, High-tech Electronics is redefining the value logic of energy storage with comprehensive data services. This transformation signifies that High-tech Electronics is evolving from a mere supplier of energy storage devices into a full-stack data service energy operator.

Xie Jianjiang stated that in the future, High-tech Electronics will continue to enhance the capabilities of terminal devices, improve functionality and flexibility, and increase scene adaptability while reducing costs. Through these measures, High-tech Electronics aims to provide users with more efficient, safer, and economically beneficial energy storage solutions, driving the energy storage industry towards high-quality development.