China continued its high-growth energy storage market expansion in July 2025, with 1,556 new energy storage-related projects filed for registration, according to the Energy Storage Application Branch (CESA) of the China Industrial Association of Power Sources. Of these, 1,468 were project applications accounting for around 53.8 GW/139.6 GWh in cumulative capacity. Another 88 filings were related to production and manufacturing initiatives.
July’s figure, 53.8 GW/139.6 GWh new capacity filed for registration, reflects a year-on-year increase of 164%. Among these, 28 new GWh-scale projects were registered, with Inner Mongolia accounting for 12 – the largest single share. Other provinces with notable GWh-level additions included Gansu (4), and Shanxi, Shandong and Guangxi (2 each).
In total capacity terms, Inner Mongolia topped the list (5.48 GW/23.98 GWh), followed by Gansu, Guangdong, Shaanxi and Henan (each exceeding 10 GWh). In terms of power capacity, Guangdong led with 6.35 GW/13.02 GWh, followed by Inner Mongolia, Henan, Shaanxi and Guangxi (all above 4 GW). By project count, Zhejiang led with 334 new registrations, followed by Guangdong, Jiangsu, Anhui and Henan.
Grid-side projects accounted for 91% of new power capacity (49.19 GW) and 92% of energy capacity (128.37 GWh), remaining the primary deployment domain. Power-side (generator-linked) projects contributed only 1.44 GW/4.89 GWh (~3.5%), while user-side projects accounted for 2.96 GW/6.36 GWh (~4.5%).
July registered 1,088 new commercial and industrial (C&I) user-side projects, of which 821 disclosed scale, totaling 2.96 GW/6.36 GWh—reflecting a 110% year-on-year increase. Among these, 867 were independently configured, spanning 2.885 GW/6.17 GWh. Fourteen of the projects were in the 100 MWh class. The largest, based in Huai’an, Jiangsu, is a 350 MW/700 MWh distributed storage facility.
Solar-ESS-charging formats also grew robustly: 221 new projects with planned total investment exceeding CNY 5.5 billion and disclosed storage capacity of 75.6 MW/181.8 MWh. Of these, 152 were solar-ESS-charging projects, up 97% year-on-year, with disclosed capacity of 42.7 MW/98.9 MWh, concentrated in provinces such as Henan, Guangdong, Hubei, Jiangsu, Shandong, Jiangxi and Shaanxi.
Initial investment for independent/shared lithium-based storage averaged CNY 1.227/Wh. C&I ESS averaged CNY 1.235/Wh.
On the manufacturing side, July saw 88 new registration filings, spanning battery production, system integration, PCS manufacturing, thermal management and flow batteries. Of these, 24 disclosed a combined planned investment of CNY 6.93 billion—led by a CNY 4 billion lithium cell and pack manufacturing initiative in Inner Mongolia targeting 18 GWh/year capacity.
As of 25 August, six regions—including Shanghai, Guangxi and Inner Mongolia—had issued formal “Document 136” implementation plans; another six are soliciting public feedback; and Zhejiang, Xinjiang and Hunan are in transitional or trial phases. With these policies ever more entrenched, market consensus expects grid-side storage to continue dominating, while generators may see relative decline, with further growth in user-side, hybrid and distributed applications.
Established in May 2015 under the China Industrial Association of Power Sources, CESA is a national-level, non-profit body with more than 300 member enterprises and over 150 expert advisors. The association undertakes policy research, standards development, and industry data publishing. Its recent outputs include sector white papers and technical norms for energy management systems, positioning it as a key facilitator of coordinated policy, standardization and industry development within China’s energy storage ecosystem.
