Capacity Expansion: From "Accumulation of Quantity" to "Leap of Quality"
From January to September 2025, the domestic flow battery energy storage industry has delivered an impressive "production capacity answer sheet": 41 new production and manufacturing projects, 61.736 GWh planned annual production capacity, and a total investment of 34.914 billion yuan. Behind the data is the deep transformation of the industry from "single point layout" to "full chain collaboration". Unlike the traditional "blindly following the trend" of capacity expansion, the capacity construction of flow batteries this time presents a distinct "hierarchical logic" -24% of projects have been fully put into operation, and leading enterprises such as Dalian Rongke and Shanghai Electric have quickly filled the equipment demand of current 100MW demonstration projects with mature technology; 24% of projects are currently under construction or partially operational, targeting the surge in long-term energy storage orders in the short term; The remaining 52% of reserve projects reserve space for market growth after 2026, effectively avoiding the dual risks of "overcapacity" and "supply shortage".
More noteworthy is that the expansion of production capacity has broken through the bottleneck of "decentralization" and formed a dual feature of "technology dominance+regional clusters". On the technical route, all vanadium flow batteries firmly occupy a dominant position with 63% of the projects (26 projects), covering the complete industry chain from vanadium electrolyte, stack to system integration. Dalian Rongke's full industry chain layout in Shuangyashan, Heilongjiang and Zhuanghe, Liaoning has stabilized its global vanadium electrolyte market share at over 90%. And alternative routes such as iron chromium and zinc bromine are also accelerating breakthroughs. The production of Langxiong Energy's 32.15 kW iron chromium flow battery stack and the planning of a 300-400 MW fully automated production line by 2026 inject new vitality into the diversification of industrial technology.
In terms of regional layout, the synergistic effect of "resource orientation" and "market orientation" is highlighted. Liaoning relies on vanadium ore resources to build a comprehensive vanadium industry cluster, Jiangsu focuses on electrolyte and system integration with its advantages in chemical and equipment manufacturing, and Xinjiang and Inner Mongolia combine the demand of wind and solar power bases to layout GWh level production capacity - the landing of Zhixi Technology's 1GW/4GWh smart factory and Xinzhaoneng super 4GWh project, which enables the production capacity of flow batteries to be matched with the demand for new energy consumption, greatly reducing transportation and operation costs.
Cost Breakthrough: From "Price Sensitive" to "Economic Manifestation"
For a long time, "high cost" has been the core bottleneck restricting the large-scale application of flow batteries, and 2025 will become the "breakthrough year" for this situation. In September, Dalian Rongke won the bid for the Mengneng Baotou Bailing Energy Storage Power Station project with a system unit price of 1.958 yuan/Wh, reducing the purchase price of all vanadium flow battery systems to below 2 yuan/Wh for the first time. This breakthrough is not only a digital leap, but also a "qualitative change" in economy - in long-term energy storage scenarios of more than 4 hours, all vanadium flow batteries have the strength to compete with lithium iron phosphate batteries for the first time.
Behind the cost reduction is the dual driving force of "technology cost reduction" and "mode innovation". On the technical level, Dalian Rongke's 1.5GWh vanadium electrolyte production line improves electrolyte utilization through concentration optimization, while Shanghai Electric's 500MW stack automation production line reduces labor costs with "full process unmanned operation". The localization of core materials is also accelerating, and the localization rate of electrode materials has approached 70%. At the model level, "electrolyte leasing" has become a cost reducing tool. Enterprises such as Hunan Yinfeng have transformed electrolytes from "one-time purchase assets" to "long-term leasing services", directly helping users reduce initial investment by 60% and effectively alleviating market concerns about "high initial investment".
According to the current pace of cost reduction, the industry has formed a clear cost roadmap: entering the era of 1.5 yuan/Wh in 2027, breaking through the 1 yuan/Wh mark in 2030, and ultimately moving towards the ultimate goal of 0.7 yuan/Wh. This means that in the next 5-10 years, flow batteries will achieve "economic standards" in scenarios such as grid side and new energy station side, becoming one of the mainstream choices for long-term energy storage.
Application Expansion: From "Demonstration Verification" to "Scene Penetration"
In 2025, the application of flow batteries will no longer be limited to "pilot projects", but will enter a new stage of "large-scale implementation+diversified penetration". In the second batch of green and low-carbon advanced technology demonstration projects of the National Development and Reform Commission, five flow battery energy storage projects have a scale of over 3.7GWh, and the 200MW/1GWh power station in Changji, Xinjiang is the world's first GWh level flow energy storage project to be fully connected to the grid, marking the industry's official farewell to the "trial and error of 100MW level" and entering the era of "GWh level mass production".
The expansion of application scenarios further unleashes the "technological advantages" of flow batteries. In Songyuan, Jilin, a 100MW/400MWh all vanadium flow battery shared energy storage power station has overcome the energy storage problem in cold regions and verified its wide temperature range adaptability; In the Guoneng Dachaidan Wind and Solar Energy Storage Project, the collaborative operation of flow batteries with seven energy storage technologies, including lithium batteries and flywheels, demonstrates its system integration capability of "compatibility and complementarity"; The grid connection of the 1.25MW/6MWh mining energy storage project in Xuzhou, Shanxi provides a new solution for the green transformation of mines; More noteworthy is that Shanxi Lubao Group's 10 million watt hour vanadium battery system has been exported to American mines, achieving a breakthrough in China's flow battery technology "going global".
The exploration of these scenarios not only validates the advantages of flow batteries in long-term energy storage, safety and stability, and extreme environmental adaptation, but also constructs a "misaligned competition" pattern with lithium batteries - in limited scenarios such as nuclear emergency power supply, aging power grid transformation, and remote microgrids, flow batteries quickly occupy the market with their "intrinsic safety" characteristics; In the field of power grid frequency regulation, its hundred millisecond response capability fills the "high-frequency regulation gap" of lithium batteries.