In some large economic countries in Europe and the United States that have a good power industry foundation and a vast new energy market, the market demand is large and profits are high, which has inspired Chinese energy storage companies to start a wave of "going global".

In August 2023, many energy storage companies such as Envision Power, Honeycomb Energy, Ruipu Lanjun, Penghui Energy, and Sungrow won overseas orders, setting a new high for the year. Major manufacturers have deployed energy storage business overseas and won orders one after another. The following will sort out some companies that have deployed energy storage business overseas (attached table).

European and American energy storage markets are booming

From a global market perspective, China, the United States, and Europe are currently the top three energy storage markets in the world. According to estimates by the European Energy Storage Association, about 200GW of energy storage will need to be deployed by 2030, which means 14GW will be added every year; by 2050, 600GW of energy storage will need to be deployed, which means 20GW will be added every year after 2030.

In terms of overseas markets, analysts say that the European and American markets have become an important business layout direction for China's leading energy storage industry chain companies due to their high degree of power marketization and good profitability. Relevant data shows that the United States, China, Germany, Italy, the United Kingdom, Japan and Australia accounted for more than 90% of the global new electrochemical energy storage market throughout the year.

The European market is a market with rapid growth for household energy storage and industrial and commercial energy storage. Since 2022, European natural gas and electricity prices have soared, with European benchmark natural gas prices once soaring 21%. The cost of electricity in Europe has increased significantly, and the economics of household solar energy storage have become more prominent. According to statistics, more than 90% of European household energy storage is concentrated in the top five countries - Germany, Italy, the United Kingdom, Austria, and Switzerland. Among them, Germany is the largest household energy storage market in Europe.

The growth rate of the U.S. market is equally astonishing. The domestic power grid in the United States consists of three major power grids: the Western United Power Grid, the Eastern United Power Grid, and the Texas Power Grid. The interconnection of regional power grids is low. Due to the geographical characteristics of the Rocky Mountains and historical reasons, the power generation structure of each power grid region has changed. There is a difference. California and Texas respectively have higher proportions of photovoltaic and wind power generation. California is unable to achieve complete self-consumption of electricity and the Texas power grid is less interconnected with the outside world. Therefore, California and Texas have become the main installed energy storage markets in the United States. The IRA (Inflation Reduction Act) bill introduced in August 2022 has strengthened the ITC policy. In 2022H1, the U.S. energy storage market continued its high growth trend, with front-of-meter energy storage being the mainstay and the storage duration continuing to increase.

Chinese companies move toward the global market

The sharp increase in global energy storage installed capacity has given Chinese companies the desire and demand to enter the global market, and changes in overseas markets have also provided Chinese companies with huge space. Since 2023, more Chinese companies have achieved breakthroughs in overseas markets, and the era of global energy storage has arrived.

CATL took the lead in breaking through the North American market in the energy storage field. Last year, CATL reached a cooperation agreement with FlexGen, an American energy storage technology company, to supply the latter with 10GWh of energy storage products within three years. This energy storage product is a container-type liquid-cooled energy storage product EnerC, which was developed for extreme weather such as extreme cold, high temperature, high humidity, and desert. It is reported that FlexGen’s HybridOS™ platform will help CATL’s energy storage products radiate to high-performance energy storage systems in Texas, California and throughout North America.

As the first Chinese company to enter the North American market, BYD has been entering the North American market since 2011. Its achievements in the European and American markets have become a new benchmark for Chinese energy storage companies to go overseas. Currently, BYD Energy Storage has completed the installation of 160,000 household energy storage products in 56 countries around the world.

As early as 2018, Sungrow integrated its photovoltaic and energy storage businesses. Relying on the advantages of overseas photovoltaic marketing channels, Sungrow’s energy storage business successively completed breakthroughs in the US, German, and Japanese markets in 2018, and has been storing energy for seven consecutive years. System shipments rank first among Chinese companies.

In the field of household energy storage, Peneng Technology stands out when competing with global competitors such as Tesla and Sonnen. Peneng Technology's shipments have ranked second in the world since 2020, and have gradually narrowed the gap with Tesla, which ranks first. The portable energy storage company Huabao New Energy generates 80% of its revenue from overseas.

Facing overseas markets, Chinese companies have obvious advantages. Chinese companies have a mature energy storage industry chain with lithium batteries as the core, many large-scale lithium battery production bases, and strong competitive advantages such as industrial chain and cost.