China Scraps Energy Storage Mandate for Renewable Energy Plants

Wedoany.com Report-Mar 22, New renewable energy plants in China will no longer be required to build storage in order to secure development rights and grid connection.

Since introduced in 2022, policy mandates requiring solar and wind energy projects to include energy storage systems have been crucial in the acceleration of storage deployment in China. To date, more than 20 provinces have issued such mandates and some provincial governments have upped their mandatory ratios for energy storage projects to 20%, up from 10% a couple of years ago.

These requirements have helped mitigate renewables curtailment in China. However, they have also increased operational costs for renewable energy projects, and many project owners have reported low utilization rates of their storage systems.