Global market share exceeds 50%, new energy storage surges: CATL leads the way, Sungrow signs large orders, leading enterprises "seek gold" overseas

Recently, Sungrow Power Supply Co., Ltd. (300274.SZ), a domestic A-share energy giant, announced that after the implementation of the world's largest 7.8GWh energy storage project in Saudi Arabia, the company has won an energy storage cooperation order with an installed capacity of up to 7.5GWh in the United Arab Emirates.

△ Image source: Sungrow

"After the project is completed, it will create two global benchmarks: the world's first GW-level all-weather renewable energy project and the world's largest application project of 684Ah laminated cells," Sungrow said. The project is expected to be connected to the grid in 2027 and can adapt to the complex power grid environment in the Middle East and the characteristics of large fluctuations on the user side.

In addition to Sungrow, domestic energy storage players such as Contemporary Amperex Technology Co., Limited (300750.SZ; 03750.HK), BYD Company Limited (002594.SZ; 01211.HK), CALB Group Co., Limited (03931.HK), and Hithium Energy Storage are also continuously promoting their global layout. As of 2026, Chinese energy storage players have covered major markets in the Asia-Pacific, the European Union, the Middle East, and the Americas.

In the domestic market, benefiting from policy support, improved business models, and reduced energy storage costs, the demand for energy storage has grown rapidly. According to incomplete statistics from the Zhongguancun Energy Storage Industry Technology Alliance, as of the end of 2025, the cumulative installed capacity of China's operational power energy storage projects reached 213.3GW, accounting for 43.0% of the global market's total scale, a year-on-year increase of 54%.

In the view of many energy storage giants, the domestic energy storage industry has completed the key leap from demonstration applications to large-scale popularization and has become the core support for the construction of a new power system and the implementation of the "dual carbon" goal. In the long run, the domestic energy storage industry will continue to develop in multiple fields such as optimizing energy supply and expanding energy application scenarios.

However, in the face of opportunities, challenges cannot be ignored.

01

New-type energy storage becomes the main force

China has provided strong policy support for the development of the energy storage industry.

At the beginning of 2025, the National Development and Reform Commission and the National Energy Administration issued the "Notice on Deepening the Market-oriented Reform of the On-grid Electricity Price of New Energy to Promote the High-quality Development of New Energy", which cancelled the mandatory energy storage requirements for new energy projects. This major adjustment has prompted China's energy storage industry to shift from "mandatory energy storage allocation" to market-led, significantly enhancing its internal driving force.

In this context, by the end of 2025, the cumulative installed capacity of domestic operational power energy storage projects increased to 213.3GW, accounting for 43.0% of the global market's total scale, a year-on-year increase of 54%. The new-type energy storage sector has developed more rapidly, with the cumulative installed capacity reaching 144.7GW, accounting for more than two-thirds of the total scale of domestic power energy storage and 51.9% in the global new-type energy storage market.

New-type energy storage refers to new energy storage technologies that can provide power output, such as electrochemical energy storage, compressed air energy storage, and flywheel energy storage, other than pumped storage. It is an important supporting technology for building a new power system with new energy as the main body. In 2024, "developing new-type energy storage" was written into the government work report for the first time.

In 2025, the newly added installed capacity of China's new-type energy storage reached 66.4GW (power)/189.5GWh (capacity), with the power scale and capacity scale increasing by about 52% and 73% year-on-year respectively, accounting for 58.6% in the global market and ranking first in the world for four consecutive years.

Behind the rapid growth of the new-type energy storage industry, leading companies in the new energy field such as Contemporary Amperex Technology, BYD, and Hithium Energy Storage have become the mainstays of the industry. They either specialize in energy storage batteries or layout energy storage systems.

For example, in 2025, the sales volume of Contemporary Amperex Technology's energy storage batteries reached 121GWh, a year-on-year increase of 29.13%, and its energy storage battery shipments ranked first in the world for five consecutive years. The energy storage business has become a key business for Contemporary Amperex Technology: in 2025, the company's energy storage battery business revenue was 62.44 billion yuan, accounting for 14.74% of the overall revenue.

BYD's energy storage business focuses on the system level, including power-side energy storage, grid energy storage, industrial and commercial energy storage, and household energy storage. In 2025, BYD's energy storage system shipments exceeded 60GWh, ranking first among global energy storage system suppliers, and it provided energy storage system solutions for more than 650 large-scale energy storage projects at home and abroad, covering more than 110 countries and regions around the world.

△ Image source: Tuchong

Within Sungrow, the revenue from energy storage systems reached 37.287 billion yuan in 2025, a year-on-year increase of 49.39%, accounting for 41.81% of the company's revenue. In 2025, Sungrow's energy storage systems were shipped globally with a volume of 43GWh, and its energy storage systems have been widely used in power markets in Europe, the Americas, the Middle East, Africa, and the Asia-Pacific.

There are also companies that focus on the energy storage business, such as Hithium Energy Storage. "Hithium Energy Storage is the only company among those with energy storage battery shipments of over GWh globally that focuses solely on the energy storage field. Energy storage batteries and energy storage systems are our entire business," a relevant person in charge of Hithium Energy Storage told a reporter from Time Weekly.

From the perspective of the revenue structure, energy storage batteries are the main source of Hithium Energy Storage's revenue; the proportion of the energy storage system business continues to increase, and its gross profit margin is higher. In terms of business forms, Hithium Energy Storage covers two types of products: one is the sales of energy storage batteries; the other is the overall delivery of energy storage systems, covering all categories in scenarios such as the grid side, power side, industry and commerce, AI data centers, and household energy storage.

In addition to the above companies, the energy storage businesses of many listed companies are also developing rapidly, significantly improving the companies' operating returns. Among them, new-type energy storage is becoming the key development direction for China's energy storage industry players.

02

Chinese energy storage takes over the world

Globally, the energy storage industry is also booming.

In May 2025, the European Commission proposed in the "National Energy and Climate Plans" that market design and regulatory arrangements should be further improved to reduce the institutional barriers for energy storage and demand response entities to participate in the power market and system services, so as to support the large-scale grid connection and consumption of renewable energy.

In the American market, according to Sina Finance, due to the continuous increase in electricity demand in the United States, local utility companies' efforts to improve grid stability and reduce electricity costs, the newly added energy storage installed capacity in the United States in the first quarter reached 9.7GWh, a year-on-year increase of 32%, setting a record high for the first quarter of all years. Tesla, Google, etc. are all actively deploying energy storage facilities.

Chinese companies are also active participants and promoters in the overseas energy storage industry. For example, a relevant person in charge of BYD told a reporter from Time Weekly that BYD's energy storage has already completed its global layout, and its business and projects have taken deep root in multiple regional markets around the world. It is one of the earliest domestic energy storage companies to go global and has the most comprehensive layout.

"We believe that the globalization of energy storage is not a temporary opportunity but a long-term and definite trend," the above-mentioned person in charge said. "The global energy transition is already a consensus, and countries are accelerating the replacement of new energy and restructuring the power supply structure. Energy storage is an essential infrastructure, and the global market has broad space and long-term upward demand."

Domestic companies such as Sungrow and Hithium Energy Storage also attach great importance to the overseas market. "Going global is one of Hithium Energy Storage's core growth engines. We went global in 2022, and the company's global energy storage battery shipments ranked second in 2025," a relevant person in charge of Hithium Energy Storage told a reporter from Time Weekly.

An insider from a leading energy storage company told the reporter that there are three core starting points for domestic energy storage companies to go global: first, the overseas market has higher profits. The gross profit margin of the overseas business of the company where the insider works reached 30.5% in the first half of 2025, three times that of the domestic business; second, going global is an inevitable choice to use technological premium to hedge against the fierce competition in the domestic market; in addition, it is very important that the global energy storage demand structure is being reorganized, and the markets in the Americas, Europe, the Middle East, and East Asia are growing extremely fast, which is a rare opportunity for enterprise development.

This represents the core demands of most energy storage companies going global. BYD summarized it as: opening up growth space and a second growth curve at the industrial strategy level, fulfilling the responsibility of a large national enterprise and contributing to the global low-carbon transition at the industry level, and building a more diversified and stable business foundation at the value level.

In the view of industry insiders, regions such as Europe, the Americas, and the Middle East also highly recognize China's energy storage technology. Recently, Sungrow won an energy storage cooperation order with an installed capacity of up to 7.5GWh in the United Arab Emirates, and Hithium Energy Storage's 10GWh-level factory in the United States was put into mass production. These are examples of China's energy storage industry going global.

From a global regional distribution perspective, China's energy storage industry has grown from a "follower" to a "leader" in the global market and has become one of the three regions with the largest energy storage market scale in the world, along with the United States and Europe.

△ Image source: Tuchong

03

The market is broad, but challenges and opportunities coexist

The industry believes that the biggest progress at the domestic energy storage industry level is the formation of a complete and independent full industrial chain system.

"The domestic energy storage industry has a mature and established technological route, a continuously iterated safety system, and a complete and coordinated industrial supporting system. Its overall innovation ability, supply ability, and project implementation ability have reached the global forefront; at the same time, the policy framework and market mechanism are constantly being improved, and the industrial and value positioning of energy storage have been widely recognized by the whole society," BYD told a reporter from Time Weekly.

Overall, most energy storage-related companies believe that the energy storage industry is at a critical period where challenges and opportunities coexist.

In the view of many energy storage companies, the domestic energy storage industry currently needs to answer three questions: first, how to balance safety compliance and large-scale development; second, how to achieve a diversified and healthy market profit model; third, how to avoid the problem of low-end homogenization in the industry and how to shift from scale expansion to high-quality competition in terms of technology, safety, service, and ecosystem.

"Currently, there are still problems in the industry such as a differentiated production capacity structure, fierce price competition, and an incomplete profit model," a relevant person in charge of Hithium Energy Storage told the reporter specifically. "For example, the utilization rate of old production lines of many small and medium-sized enterprises is insufficient, but high-end production lines are in short supply. Under the price war, some companies 'lose money on every order', and the industry as a whole is still in the transition stage from policy-driven to market-driven."

The real-time changes in policies also put forward higher requirements for the energy storage industry. "In the first quarter of 2026, provinces intensively introduced market-oriented time-of-use electricity price policies, and the energy storage revenue is shifting from the frequency regulation market to spot market arbitrage, which also puts forward new requirements for the trading ability of enterprises," Hithium Energy Storage said.

"The competition is fierce, which is a fact," an industry insider in the energy storage industry told a reporter from Time Weekly frankly. "But energy storage is a global super track that can accommodate various strategies, especially in the overseas market with strong potential."

According to incomplete statistics from the Global Energy Storage Database of the Zhongguancun Energy Storage Industry Technology Alliance, in 2025, the scale of new overseas orders of Chinese energy storage companies reached 366GWh, a year-on-year increase of 144%, and it exploded in the second half of the year. Energy storage orders from China have covered more than 60 countries and regions around the world, and the potential of emerging markets such as the Middle East, South America, and Southeast Asia is being rapidly released.

"The overseas market, especially the high-end markets in Europe and the United States, has rich profit margins but also high entry barriers. For example, certification standards, compliance requirements, and local service capabilities are all tough thresholds. Whoever can cross this wall first can establish brand premium and customer stickiness in the next stage," a relevant person in charge of Hithium Energy Storage said.

In the view of the industry, new-type energy storage will still be the core growth point of the energy storage industry in the future.

According to the prediction of the Zhongguancun Energy Storage Industry Technology Alliance, under the conservative scenario, it is expected that the cumulative scale of new-type energy storage will reach 371.2GW in 2030, with a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 20.7% from 2026 to 2030; under the ideal scenario, it is expected that the cumulative scale of new-type energy storage will reach 450.7GW in 2030, with a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 25.5% during the same period.

With the continuous development of the new-type energy storage field, China's energy storage industry is expected to explode.

This article is from the WeChat official account "Time Weekly" (ID: timeweekly), author: Wu Kai, published by 36Kr with authorization.