China’s Energy Storage Market Booms in 2025: Battery Storage Capacity Exceeds 100 GW for the First Time

Beijing (China) - China has reached a new milestone in battery energy storage. At the 10th Western China Energy Storage Forum held in Hohhot, the China Energy Storage Alliance (CNESA) released the latest data on market development.

In the first half of 2025, China surpassed 100 GW of installed battery storage capacity for the first time — a 110 percent increase compared to the previous year. This marks a continuation of the shift from pumped hydro storage toward battery systems: at the end of the 13th Five-Year Plan (2016-2020), pumped hydro accounted for 89.3 percent of total cumulative storage capacity, while batteries made up just 8.2 percent. By the end of the first half of 2025, concluding the 14th Five-Year Plan (2021-2025), battery storage had risen to 59.9 percent of the total, while pumped hydro had declined to 37.4 percent.

CNESA expects continued strong growth in battery storage. The alliance highlights a particularly sharp increase in tenders for energy storage systems: the volume of centralized procurement and framework tenders rose by 618 percent year-on-year.

Germany is also accelerating its expansion of battery storage systems. As of the end of July 2025, 14 GW of battery power with a total storage capacity of 22.5 GWh had been installed (as of August 19, 2025, according to the Federal Network Agency - BNetzA). Due to sharply falling battery prices, numerous large-scale storage projects with high power and capacity are currently under development.

Source: IWR Online, 29 Aug 2025