Overall, the bidding market is raising safety standards for energy storage systems. Industry insiders believe that this trend reflects the market’s urgent need for high-quality, high-safety energy storage systems.
With the rapid development of the energy storage industry, significant breakthroughs have been made in energy storage technology and market applications. As an important product involving multiple complex links such as power storage and release, the safety of the energy storage system is directly related to the stable operation of the power grid and the safety of users. The industry is also paying more and more attention to the quality of energy storage products and the qualifications of production enterprises. Recently, the bidding announcements for the 2025 energy storage system issued by China Huaneng, China Power Construction and other central state-owned enterprises have confirmed this trend.
Increased safety requirements
It can be seen from the recent tender notices issued by several central enterprises that the market’s requirements for energy storage product quality, corporate qualifications, etc. are becoming increasingly stringent.
On November 13, PowerChina released a tender notice for the shortlisted centralized procurement project of energy storage system equipment framework in 2025-2026, which clearly requires that the battery production date shall not be more than 3 months earlier than the actual delivery date of the project. Bidders must promise that there will be no fire accidents in the energy storage battery system products supplied in the past three years. Industry insiders believe that this move blocks the possibility of the market circulation of inventory batteries.
On November 20, China Huaneng released the 2025 Energy Storage System Framework Agreement Procurement Tender Announcement, which stipulates the bidder’s performance, the performance of the battery cells used in the bidding, and the qualification and ability requirements. Among them, the bidder must also meet the requirements of having a cumulative domestic energy storage performance of no less than 1.5GWh (lithium iron phosphate battery); at least one domestic single project with a capacity of no less than 100MWh of energy storage system integration performance in energy storage power station projects.
On November 26, CGN launched the framework procurement of energy storage systems for 2025. In terms of technical requirements, the tender notice also does not accept second-hand batteries, does not accept inventory batteries (manufacturing date greater than 90 days), and proposes that the project must entrust a third party to witness the production, assembly and shipment throughout the process, and puts forward further requirements for the fire alarm system of the energy storage container.
For suppliers, safety directly affects the reliability and service life of the system, and is related to user trust and market acceptance. Overall, the bidding market is raising safety standards for energy storage systems. Industry insiders believe that this trend reflects the market’s urgent need for high-quality, high-safety energy storage systems.
Good money drives out bad money
In recent years, driven by favorable policies and technological progress, my country’s new energy storage market has shown a booming trend. As of the first half of this year, the cumulative installed capacity of new energy storage projects that have been completed and put into operation nationwide has increased by more than 40% compared with the end of 2023. Under the rapidly expanding market demand, problems such as low-price competition and market stalling have become prominent.
Since the beginning of this year, competition in the energy storage market has intensified, the price of lithium carbonate as a raw material has continued to fall, and the bidding price of energy storage systems has also continued to fall, reaching or even falling below the cost price of some manufacturers. Low-price competition makes it difficult to guarantee the quality and performance of energy storage products, especially when the quotation is lower than the cost, some companies may reduce costs by sacrificing product quality, which in turn leads to quality and safety issues.
“On the one hand, some companies adopt low-price competition strategies to obtain orders, which not only undermines market fairness, but also leads to problems such as product quality decline and safety hazards. On the other hand, some emerging energy storage technologies are still in the early stages and lack perfect quality standards and safety assessment systems. Entering the market too early may induce safety risks.” Sun Chuanwang, professor at the China Energy Economics Research Center of Xiamen University, admitted in an interview with a reporter from China Energy News.
In this context, preventing “price wars” has become the primary issue for the healthy development of the energy storage market. Raising the bidding threshold and preventing low-quality products from entering the market have become inevitable trends. “Companies need to strengthen quality control of raw materials and production processes, and relevant regulatory agencies also need to further strengthen supervision to prevent low-quality products from entering the industry.” Long Zhiqiang, senior researcher at Xinlang Information, told a reporter from China Energy News.
Sun Chuanwang believes that as the bidding threshold is raised, industry competition will shift from “price competition” to “quality competition.” “By driving out bad money with good money, companies with insufficient technical strength will be excluded from market competition, which is conducive to the healthy development of the industry.”
Filling technical gaps
In the view of the interviewees, raising the bidding threshold will help ensure the quality of bidding products, prevent companies from engaging in “price wars”, and effectively promote the healthy development of the energy storage bidding market; on the other hand, it will pose a test to a number of energy storage battery manufacturers.
“Companies should strive to balance the relationship between price and quality, starting from optimizing production processes, adopting advanced manufacturing technologies and reasonable pricing strategies, to effectively control costs while ensuring product quality.” A lithium battery industry insider told China Energy News.
“Energy storage companies should take improving their own competitiveness as their development goal, pay attention to industry technology trends and market trends, adjust technological innovation and R&D directions in a timely manner, and enhance product quality and supply stability. At the same time, they should focus on contact and cooperation with upstream and downstream companies in the industrial chain and demand-side companies to form a synergistic effect, thereby expanding the application scenarios and market space of energy storage technology. In addition, companies should also establish a good after-sales service system and continuously make up for their own technical shortcomings through user feedback.” Sun Chuanwang suggested.
In addition, while strengthening quality control, energy storage companies also need to continuously explore and develop new energy storage technologies with stronger safety, such as compressed air energy storage, flywheel energy storage, etc. In July this year, the National Development and Reform Commission and other departments jointly issued the “Action Plan for Accelerating the Construction of a New Power System (2024-2027)”, proposing to explore the construction of a number of energy storage power stations with various technical routes such as flow batteries, flywheels, compressed air energy storage, gravity energy storage, carbon dioxide energy storage, liquid air energy storage, sodium ion batteries, lead-carbon batteries, etc., based on the needs of different application scenarios for ramp rate, capacity, long-term scale regulation, economy, and safety.
Cao Renxian, chairman of Sungrow Power Supply, has previously publicly stated that the energy storage industry should adhere to the bottom line of safety and return to the “main channel” of promoting cost reduction and efficiency improvement through technological innovation as soon as possible to avoid “involution” competition. We must actively explore energy storage market mechanisms and business models to consolidate the internal driving force of energy storage development. We must further enhance the division of labor and coordination between upstream and downstream, strengthen international cooperation, and jointly promote the general trend of energy storage standardization, safety, scale, and economy.