Gansu has unveiled another major initiative, with the 15th Five-Year Plans for its three key regions issued on the same day. Why are flow batteries placed on an equal footing with photovoltaic power and wind power?
Energy Forecasting learned that recently, the General Office of the People's Government of Gansu Province has released three regional planning documents, namely the "15th Five-Year Plan for the Development of Lanzhou-Baiyu Metropolitan Area in Gansu Province", the "15th Five-Year Plan for the Development of the Hexi Corridor Economic Belt in Gansu Province", and the "15th Five-Year Plan for the Development of the Southeastern Gansu Economic Belt in Gansu Province". The three documents were released on the same day, covering the whole territory of Gansu Province, and systematically deployed the development paths of the three major regions during the 15th Five-Year Plan period.
This is not a routine release of conventional five-year plans. The deployment density of the three documents at the energy and industrial levels is significantly higher than that of previous rounds of regional plans. In particular, in the Hexi Corridor Economic Belt Plan, flow battery energy storage is listed alongside high-efficiency photovoltaic modules and large-capacity wind turbine units in the list of key technologies to "accelerate breakthroughs".
But to understand all this, you must first make clear what the three documents respectively specify.
Three plans, three distinct industrial paths
The positioning of the Lanzhou-Baiyin Metropolitan Area is "urban integration".
The plan proposes to build a spatial pattern of "one core, three circles and three corridors". By 2030, the GDP of the metropolitan area will account for more than 40% of the provincial total, and the permanent resident urbanization rate will reach 69%. In terms of energy, it will accelerate the construction of centralized wind power and photovoltaic projects, develop distributed energy according to local conditions, and promote the construction of pumped storage power stations in an orderly manner.
At the industrial level, it is proposed to "strengthen cooperation in the industrial chain such as battery materials and electrolytes", which means that the role of the Lanzhou-Baiyin Metropolitan Area in the energy storage industry chain focuses more on upstream material supply and chemical supporting services, rather than end product manufacturing.
Judging from the intensity of deployment, the arrangement for the Hexi Corridor Economic Belt can be ranked first among the three major regions.
The construction of the Jiuquan super-large wind-solar power base and the 10-million-kilowatt-level bases in Zhangye, Wuwei and Jinchang are being advanced simultaneously. The "New Energy +" initiative will be implemented to explore green energy use modes such as direct connection of green power, intelligent microgrids, and new energy access to incremental distribution networks.
In the equipment manufacturing sector, we will promote the localized production of key equipment such as large-megawatt wind turbines, inverters, electrolyzers, and hydrogen fuel cells, and guide the clustering of energy storage manufacturing in cities including Jinchang, Jiuquan and Zhangye. In terms of zero-carbon parks, the national-level zero-carbon park in Jinchang will be completed, and Jiuquan, Zhangye and Wuwei will strive to build national-level zero-carbon parks. It is also proposed to promote the coordination of green power and computing power, and deploy small and medium-sized and edge computing power facilities according to local conditions.
In the plan, the Qingyang Data Center Cluster has become the core starting point for the Southeastern Gansu Economic Belt. The plan requires promoting projects such as the integrated smart zero-carbon big data industrial park of "East Data, West Computing" source-grid-load-storage and the new-generation intelligent computing center, accelerating the construction of the "green power aggregation" project, and exploring a new path for the coordination of the "dual networks" of computing power and power.
In terms of new energy, the installed capacity of wind and solar power in eastern Gansu will exceed 10 million kilowatts, new energy storage projects will be deployed on the grid side and user side, and research on the layout of pumped storage power stations will be deepened. At the same time, relying on the Gansu section of the G30 Lianyungang-Horgos Expressway, a pilot zero-carbon highway transport channel will be built to promote the large-scale application of new energy heavy-duty trucks.
Putting the three plans together, the logical line is clear: the Hexi Corridor is responsible for power generation and equipment manufacturing, Lanzhou and Baiyin are responsible for material supply and chemical industry, and southeastern Gansu is responsible for using green power to support computing power. This is a complete chain from "source" to "manufacturing" and then to "application".
The significance of flow batteries being explicitly mentioned
The sentence in the Hexi Corridor Plan that "accelerate breakthroughs in key technologies such as high-efficiency photovoltaic modules, large-capacity wind turbine units, and flow battery energy storage" carries great weight when viewed in the context of the entire document.
Flow batteries were mostly classified into the broad category of "new energy storage" in previous provincial-level plans, and this time they are separately included in the list of key technologies in regional plans. This explicit mention points to the unique resource conditions and application scenarios of the Hexi Corridor.
The confidence of Gansu in developing flow battery energy storage comes from Jinchang, and Jinchang's confidence comes from the global discourse power of Jinchuan Group in nickel and cobalt resources. The statement in the plan that "complete the Jinchang national zero-carbon park, and promote the formation of supply advantages such as 'zero-carbon nickel and copper' and green battery materials" directly links the upstream material logic of flow batteries to the local industrial endowments.
The cost of flow battery electrolyte accounts for 30% to 60% of the total system investment, and the longer the energy storage duration, the higher the proportion. If Jinchang forms local supply capacity in the links of electrolyte and stack raw materials, it will have substantial significance for reducing the initial investment of flow batteries.
In addition, there is the 750kV power grid plan for the Hexi Corridor. The Yumen-Jinta-West Zhangye-Hongsha-Jingyuan-North Lanzhou transmission channel project, together with 750kV power transmission and transformation projects such as Shuiyuan, North Liangzhou, North Wuwei, West Lake, West Gaotai and East Heihe, will enhance the power transmission capacity to the Lanzhou-Baiyin load center.
After this channel is completed, the capacity to transmit wind and solar power from the Hexi Corridor will be significantly improved, but what happens after the power is transmitted out? The grid-connected installed capacity of new energy storage across Gansu Province has exceeded 10 million kilowatts by the end of June 2026, a year-on-year increase of 69%. As the installed capacity rises, the pressure of consumption is also increasing.
In this context, the value of flow batteries is not to replace lithium batteries, but to find a position in the duration range that lithium batteries cannot cover.
What can the 330 yuan capacity price support
Gansu implements a capacity compensation standard of 330 yuan/(kW·year) for grid-side independent energy storage, which is the same as the compensation standard for coal-fired power units. A 100MW energy storage power station can receive more than 10 million yuan in compensation every year. This is the most basic income guarantee for flow battery projects to be implemented in Gansu.
However, the capacity price solves the problem of "survival", not the problem of "rapid development". In the long-term cost reduction scenario, the levelized cost of electricity for 8-hour vanadium flow energy storage is about 0.190 yuan/kWh, and that of lithium battery is 0.186 yuan/kWh, which are almost the same. The implication of this data is that when the energy storage duration is extended to 8 hours, the full life cycle cost of flow batteries has been on the same level as that of lithium battery power stations. Vanadium flow batteries can reach tens of thousands of cycles, with an operation period of up to 25 years, and the higher initial investment will be diluted over time and by the number of cycles.
The problem is that the current duration structure of energy storage projects in Gansu is far from reaching 8 hours. In the first half of 2026, the average duration of new national new energy storage projects was 2.69 hours, and the proportion of projects with a duration of 4 hours or more increased by 4.8% year-on-year. In 2025, the proportion of projects with a duration of 4 hours or more was about 15%. The real demand for long-duration energy storage has not been released on a large scale. By including flow batteries in the key technology list at this point in time, Gansu is betting on the structural growth of 4 to 8 hours energy storage demand after the penetration rate of wind and solar power continues to rise in the next three years.
Green power direct connection opens a side door for flow batteries
The phrase "explore green power direct connection" in the Hexi Corridor Plan has additional implications against the background of the official implementation of the EU Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism. Starting from January 1, 2026, CBAM enters the official payment phase. The EU only recognizes two carbon emission calculation models for imported commodities: the national average power consumption mix and the direct connected power mode. The source of green power must be physically connected through exclusive lines or point-to-point power purchase agreements, and provide hourly matching data. The simple practice of purchasing green certificates is no longer valid.
The physical characteristics of green power direct connection determine that its requirements for energy storage systems are different from those of conventional grid-connected projects. It is difficult to accurately match the output curve of wind power and photovoltaic with the industrial load curve, and cross-day and night regulation must rely on long-duration energy storage. Lithium batteries are suitable for short-term peak shaving during the day, but when the direct connection system needs to ensure 24-hour uninterrupted energy supply, the zero-capacity-degradation feature of flow batteries is truly reflected.
The same is true for the scenario of coordinated computing and power. The country's first pilot project of green power aggregation and direct supply to data centers has been connected to the grid for power generation with the first batch of photovoltaic units in Huanxian County, Qingyang, Gansu Province. The total installed capacity of the first phase is 1 million kilowatts (750,000 kW wind power + 250,000 kW photovoltaic), and the first batch of units was connected to the grid in January 2026; the overall planned installed capacity of the project is 2 million kilowatts. Data centers require 7×24 hours of stable power supply, and the intermittency of wind and solar power must be smoothed by energy storage. If the computing power load of the Qingyang cluster wants to raise the proportion of green power to the level required by the plan, long-duration energy storage is not an optional item.
After the three plans are implemented, whether the energy storage manufacturing in the Hexi Corridor can truly form clusters in Jinchang, Jiuquan and Zhangye depends on when the localized supply capacity of key materials such as electrolytes can be fully realized.
The 330 yuan capacity price gives flow battery projects a starting point, but the real commercialization inflection point will not appear in planning documents, nor in the news of a certain automated production line being put into operation. It will appear in a quieter place: when an energy storage project with a duration of more than 4 hours no longer needs to separately demonstrate "why not use lithium batteries", flow batteries can be regarded as having their own position in this industry.
Before that, what this track needs is to push down the cost curve, accumulate engineering verification, and let the capital market have the patience to wait for a longer return cycle.