Figure 2: Cumulative installed capacity of new energy storage projects commissioned in China (as of the end of June 2023) In the first half of 2023, China's new energy storage continued to develop at a high speed, with 850 projects (including planning, under construction and commissioned projects), more than twice that of the same period last year.
China, the US, and Europe are the main players. In 2022, they accounted for 90% of global energy storage-related fundraising deals (China for 46%, the US for 31%, and Europe for 13% respectively), raising USD 2.9 billion, USD 2 billion, and USD 800 million, respectively (Figure
In 2022, industry players raised RMB 32.5 billion in Series A and Series B funding, accounting for 66% of the total (Figure 16). From a regional perspective, energy storage enterprises in the top 10 provinces raised a total of RMB 45.3 billion in 2022, accounting for 92% of the national total.
Spending by oil and gas companies outside “traditional” areas of supply is set to reach 5% of total spending in 2022. But this average masks a wide range of approaches. The majors and Equinor accounted for about 90% of total clean energy investment by the oil and gas industry in 2021 and almost all of the investment tracked so far in 2022.
In 2022, 194 electrochemical storage stations were put into operation, with a total stored energy of 7.9GWh. These accounted for 60.2% of the total energy stored by stations in operation, a year-on-year increase of 176% (Figure 4).
Although academic analysis finds that business models for energy storage are largely unprofitable, annual deployment of storage capacity is globally on the rise (IEA, 2020). One reason may be generous subsidy support and non-financial drivers like a first-mover advantage (Wood Mackenzie, 2019).