A wave of price hikes is sweeping the energy storage industry. Sungrow has raised its prices for the second time this year. The industry should refrain from launching price wars and return to the logic of value realization.
Sungrow raises prices of its solar and energy storage products, triggering intensive price adjustments and correction across the entire industrial chain.
Energy Vision learned that on September 11, Sungrow released a price adjustment notice.
This global leader in solar and energy storage announced that starting from September 20, it will raise the prices of its full line of inverters, energy storage converters and energy storage systems by 5% to 15%, with medium-voltage grid-tied inverters and integrated energy storage converters seeing the highest increase of up to 15%. This is already Sungrow's second price adjustment within the year — in the first quarter of this year, leading inverter manufacturers including Sungrow and Ginlong Technologies took the lead in raising prices of their energy storage-specific models by 6% to 10%. Since July, more than ten industrial chain enterprises such as EVE Energy, Sinexcel, and Inovance have followed up intensively, with price adjustments ranging from 2% to 30%. From cells to PCS, from inverters to system integration, the entire industrial chain has completed the coverage of price increases in two months.
According to media reports, the head of Sungrow's power energy storage product line confirmed that this price adjustment is "mainly due to the rise in prices of bulk materials such as copper and aluminum, and secondly to curb vicious low-price competition". This round of price increases is not just a cost transmission, it has torn a hole in the pricing logic of the energy storage industry over the past three years, which was "no lowest, only lower".
Copper, Lithium, Chips: Three Mountains Weighing on Costs
Sungrow stated in the price adjustment letter: "The current product pricing is no longer sufficient to cover the comprehensive investment in raw materials, production and manufacturing, technology iteration and upgrading, as well as after-sales operation and maintenance". In the cost structure of energy storage systems, cells account for about 60% to 70%. Lithium carbonate, the core raw material of cells, rose from a low of less than RMB 60,000/ton in mid-2025 to once exceeding RMB 210,000/ton in May 2026, with a cumulative increase of more than 200%. For lithium carbonate alone, every RMB 10,000/ton increase in price will increase the cell cost by about 0.6 to 0.7 cent/Wh, which is directly transmitted to the system end.
But lithium carbonate is not the only problem. The explosive growth of AI computing power has squeezed wafer production capacity, the supply of key components such as memory chips and IGBTs continues to be tight, and the price increase is generally between 50% and 800%. The prices of copper and aluminum are rising simultaneously, and PCB and magnetic components are also following the trend. The data listed by Sinexcel in the price adjustment letter is more intuitive: The price increase of components such as PCB, memory chips, magnetic components, SMD resistors and capacitors, and IGBT chips is generally between 50% and 800%, "and the upward trend is still continuing".
Statistics from the China Nonferrous Metals Industry Association show that in the first half of this year, the prices of copper and aluminum rose by 31.4% and 18.8% year-on-year respectively. The copper futures price on the London Metal Exchange has repeatedly hit new all-time highs, and on September 10, the main Shanghai copper contract also set a historical record of RMB 112,300 per ton. Sungrow specially mentioned in the price adjustment letter that the prices of non-ferrous metals such as copper, aluminum, tin, silver and gold continue to rise, coupled with the tight supply of core components, the overall material procurement cost continues to rise. The company has previously digested cost increments by locking in long-cycle supply resources, optimizing supply chain procurement strategies, and tapping internal cost reduction space, but this round of material price increases exceeded expectations.
Under the superposition of triple pressures, the cost curve of energy storage systems has risen sharply in the past year. This is not a cyclical fluctuation, but a structural cost revaluation. Sungrow's two price increases within the year are not so much a proactive move as a collective correction of the industry's "low price for scale" model.
Price Adjustment Letters Are Flying Like Snowflakes, No Case Is Isolated
Looking at the longer timeline, this round of price adjustment by Sungrow is not an isolated case, nor even the starting point.
In the first quarter of this year, the inverter segment took the lead in action. Sungrow and Ginlong Technologies raised prices of their energy storage-specific models by 6% to 10%, paving the way for the entire industrial chain's price adjustment in advance. In the second quarter, cell prices began to rise rapidly. As of August 2026, the average price of mainstream domestic 314Ah LFP energy storage cells has rebounded to around RMB 0.365/Wh, an increase of more than 20% compared with the end of 2025. Leading enterprises such as CATL and EVE Energy have previously clearly launched price increase actions.
The real turning point was in July. On July 10, Sinexcel released a full-line price increase letter, raising the prices of all series of products such as energy storage microgrids, residential energy storage, and charging and swapping equipment by 10% to 30% uniformly. In the following month, the dominoes fell one after another. Inovance announced that starting from August 30, it will adjust the prices of its full range of products including converters, integrated converter and boost machines, and energy storage systems, with an overall increase of 5% to 15%. Kstar raised prices of products such as UPS by 3% to 8%, effective on September 1. East raised prices of all series of products by 10% to 25%, and Green Energy Huichong raised prices of charging piles and energy storage products by 15% to 25%. According to the statistics of the Energy Storage Industry Technology Alliance of Zhongguancun, since July, many energy storage industrial chain enterprises including Inovance, EVE Energy, Sinexcel, Lingchong New Energy, Green Energy Huichong, and East have successively issued price adjustment notices, covering all industrial chain categories such as cathode materials, energy storage cells, energy storage converters PCS, solar-storage-charging equipment, and energy storage integration systems, with price increases ranging from 2% to 30%.
This round of price adjustment by Sungrow in September is the final step of this transmission chain at the system end. From inverters to cells, from PCS to energy storage systems, the wave of price increases has completed the coverage of the entire industrial chain in two months.
The reason why price increases can be implemented so intensively is that two new variables that did not exist in previous years are at play. First, AI computing power squeezes wafer production capacity. Leading chip manufacturers such as Infineon and Texas Instruments have completed two rounds of price adjustments within the year, with each round increasing by about 10% to 15%, and the chip delivery cycle in the energy storage industry has been extended from 4 weeks to 3 months. For the first time, the energy storage industry found that its competitors are not only peers, but also large models. Second, the consumption tax on batteries is resumed. Starting from September 1, lithium batteries will resume levying a 2% consumption tax, which will rise to 4% in 2027. This is a rigid expenditure that cannot be hedged by optimizing production processes.
These costs are rigid, not cyclical. The intensive price increase across the entire industrial chain is not so much a "price hike" as a "correction". Many experts gave a judgment in an interview with Shanghai Securities News: The essence of this round of price increases for energy storage products is cost recovery and value revaluation, which is expected to push the industry to shift to high-quality value competition.
After the policy gate is closed, the accounts of the energy storage industry need to be recalculated.
The Industry Can No Longer Sustain Cutthroat Competition, and Policies Are Also Being Introduced
On September 8, China suspended the approval of new battery energy storage manufacturing projects. This policy adjustment, known in the industry as the "supply-side reform" in the lithium battery sector, marks that the energy storage industry has shifted from rapid expansion to a new stage of precise regulation focusing on preventing overcapacity and curbing low-price involution. The core of the policy is "only restricting new expansion, not restricting technological upgrading" — new projects that have not yet started construction will be suspended, and projects that have been filed and are under construction will not be affected. Combined with the resumption of consumption tax, efforts are made on both the supply and demand sides simultaneously.
Market data is already responding. Data from the Zhongguancun Energy Storage Industry Technology Alliance shows that in the first half of 2026, the average winning bid price for 2-hour energy storage systems was RMB 599.3/kWh, up 8.3% year-on-year; the average winning bid price for 4-hour long-duration energy storage systems was RMB 541.3/kWh, up 21% year-on-year. The average price of 4-hour systems is lower than that of 2-hour systems, but the increase is more than twice that of the latter — the extra 12 percentage points or so cannot be explained by cell price increases. The answer is hidden in the policy document: In January this year, the National Development and Reform Commission and the National Energy Administration established for the first time at the national institutional level a grid-side independent new energy storage capacity price mechanism, where capacity revenue is directly linked to discharge duration. The capacity price of a typical 4-hour independent energy storage station is twice that of a 2-hour station. The market is not suddenly generous, but the policy quantifies and monetizes the value of long duration.
Chen Haisheng, Chairman of the Zhongguancun Energy Storage Industry Technology Alliance, made a systematic judgment on the industry: "In the first half of 2026, the newly added scale of energy storage in China saw a phased decline, indicating that the energy storage industry is entering a critical stage of value reconstruction from the previous scale expansion. In the next few years, the energy storage industry will enter a period of shift in growth rate, and the market will pay more attention to value returns, technological competitiveness and full life cycle operation capabilities".
Feng Siyao, Deputy Secretary-General of the Energy Storage Application Branch of the China Industrial Association of Power Sources, pointed out that this round of price increase is an important signal for the industry's price correction, but it cannot be judged that low-price "involution" has come to an end. She believes that with technological innovation and the maturity of the industrial chain, the cost of energy storage systems will still decline trend-wise in the next five years, and the industry needs to be alert to repeated price fluctuations caused by overcapacity.
This reminder is not unfounded. According to industry institution statistics, the planned expansion of energy storage cells this year has exceeded 800GWh, and the completed production capacity by the end of the year is about 1.2 to 1.5TWh, with the total planned capacity approaching 2TWh, far exceeding the real demand of the global market. This round of price increases is driven by costs, not by product differentiation or industry clearance. Once the cost pressure eases, will the price war make a comeback?
The real watershed of the energy storage industry is not whether to raise prices or not, but how many enterprises are willing to break away from the old path of "trading price for volume" and invest resources in technology iteration and global layout. Sungrow's two price adjustments within the year are not so much a "price increase" as a "track change" — from selling products to selling value, from competing on price to competing on technology. But this round of price increases is driven by costs, not by industry clearance. The price adjustment letter is just the beginning, and capacity clearance and technology value realization are the real tough battles.