Orient Securities: Energy storage maintained year-on-month growth in June, optimistic about annual energy storage demand and volume in the second half of the year

The Zhitong Finance App learned that, overall, the year-on-year energy storage growth rate slowed slightly in June, mainly due to a rapid increase in system operating costs. According to ITU New Media data, in the first quarter of 2026, system operating costs showed the characteristics of “total volume jump, structural differentiation, and full visibility”. The share of system operating expenses of industrial and commercial users across the country soared from 8% to more than 15%. Some regions are expected to break through 25%. It is expected that 2026-2030 will be a period of rapid rise, and the average annual growth rate is expected to reach 20% to 30%. According to the State Power Investment Institute of Economics and Research, after paying the operating fee for the system, the price difference income from grid-side energy storage dropped drastically, and the increased capacity compensation revenue was difficult to make up for. The bank believes that system operating costs, as a control valve, will affect the speed of installation, but will not affect overall demand. As market revenue imbalances gradually become prominent, subsequent revenue structure issues may be solved. The bank is optimistic about the annual demand for energy storage and the pace of volume release in the second half of the year.

Orient Securities's main views are as follows:

Incidents

According to CESA, in June 2026, 77 new domestic energy storage projects were added, with a total installed capacity of 4.22GW/11.02GWh, up 0.72%/9.98% year on year and 41.6%/53.5% month on month.

The northwest region leads the installed capacity, with Gansu, Guangdong and Hebei accounting for nearly 40% of the capacity

In terms of regional distribution, the northwest region added the largest number of new installations in June, 0.99 GW/2.68 GWh, accounting for 23.4% of power, ranking third, and accounting for 24.3% of capacity, ranking first. Regional projects are distributed in the four provinces of Gansu, Xinjiang, Ningxia and Qinghai, mainly large-scale independent energy storage and power side storage. In terms of provinces, Gansu added a total of 0.47 GW/1.64 GWh of installed capacity in June, accounting for 14.88% of the capacity, ranking first in the country.

The power grid side accounts for about 60%, and various new technologies are being implemented centrally

In terms of application scenarios, 28 new grid-connected projects have been added for independent and shared energy storage on the power grid. The installed capacity is about 2.74 GW/6.85 GWh, accounting for 64.8% of the power and 62.2% of the capacity, both ranking first.

Private enterprises contribute more than 40%, and third-party energy storage integrators are on the rise

From the owners' perspective, among the grid-connected projects in June, private enterprises and third-party energy storage integrators ranked first with a power ratio of 41.6%, reflecting the high marketability of the independent energy storage power plant investment and operation market. Among them, Easy Energy Storage had the largest investment scale, reaching 500 mW/1 GWh; Haibosichuang's investment scale also reached the GWH level, 250 mW/1 GWh; Longjing Environmental Protection put into operation 215 mW/860 MWh; China Innovation Aviation's energy investment platform Kaibo Capital operated 2 projects with a total scale of 200mW/600MWh. Local state-owned enterprises ranked second with 21.9% of power, and the five major and six small energy central enterprises ranked third with 18.9% of power.

Risk Alerts

Domestic energy storage capacity fell short of expectations.