MANY MINDEDChina's battery fleet has room to move far more clean power than it does
An analysis from Ember argues that China's utility-scale batteries could have shifted an additional 23 TWh of clean electricity into peak-demand hours in 2025 — roughly enough, Ember says, to power Singapore's economy for five months. The point is not that China lacks storage, but that its enormous fleet is being under-used relative to what it could do.
The scale behind the claim is striking. In December 2025 alone China added 18.76 GW / 65.46 GWh of new storage, exceeding the full year's additions in the United States, and by early 2026 it had installed nearly 150 GW of lithium-ion systems — over half of global capacity. In June 2026 it raised its 2030 storage target to 300 GW. Utilisation more than doubled between 2022 and 2025, yet a gap persists: standalone batteries cycle more often than co-located ones, and running both to 350 cycles a year is what yields the extra 23 TWh. Policy is shifting too, with standalone storage now drawing capacity payments and making up 84.7% of new installs in early 2026.
Why it moves abundance: storage that actually shifts clean power to peak hours displaces fossil generation directly, making low-carbon electricity available when demand is highest rather than curtailed when it is not.
The caveats are important. The 23 TWh figure is a theoretical optimised scenario, not energy actually shifted, and the text is an Ember press release. China's 'new energy storage' excludes pumped hydro, and the market reforms that would drive higher cycling are still being piloted in places like Shandong. Watch whether utilisation rises as those markets mature.
Source: CleanTechnica