In the complex landscape of overseas industrial and commercial energy storage, the outdoor integrated cabinet is evolving to meet diverse needs. The era when a single product dominated the market is over. As the industrial and commercial energy storage market began to surge in 2023, companies faced the challenge of designing a highly adaptable standard product suitable for various scenarios. Following the crowd has become a lower-risk market strategy, leading most companies to produce products with similar appearances and specifications. Consequently, this has resulted in a high level of product homogeneity, which has drawn criticism within the industry.
As energy storage companies delve deeper into industrial and commercial scenarios, it has become increasingly clear that energy storage systems cannot be limited to just one form, such as an outdoor integrated cabinet. A single standard product is inadequate for addressing diverse applications. Starting in the second half of 2024, the overseas industrial and commercial energy storage market is expected to experience rapid growth, revealing a wider variety of applications. As different sub-scenarios are explored, the capacity and forms of industrial and commercial energy storage products are becoming more diverse. The capacity of outdoor integrated cabinets has expanded from 215 kWh to 800 kWh, and containerized and stacked battery solutions have found their respective niches in markets across Africa, Asia, and Latin America, as well as in high-end developed countries.
Moreover, the development of functions such as high discharge rates, seamless grid connection and disconnection, grid formation, and black start capabilities for specific scenarios indicates that industrial and commercial energy storage systems are gradually shedding their homogeneous label. “It is almost impossible to develop a standard product and sell it globally,” stated the chairman of Yilan Technology during an interview.
The trend towards larger capacities and diverse forms is evident. In recent years, industrial and commercial energy storage systems have been almost synonymous with outdoor integrated cabinets. These modular designs offer flexibility and scalability, allowing for adjustments in energy storage modules based on power demand fluctuations. Their compact design reduces space requirements, thereby lowering construction and operational costs. Since the second half of 2024, many industrial and commercial energy storage systems have begun to adopt 314 Ah energy cells, replacing the previous 280 Ah cells, leading to a shift in mainstream products from 215 kWh to 261 kWh. With the increasing application of high-voltage systems (10/20 kV) in medium and large enterprises, companies like CRRC Zhuzhou Institute, Hongzheng Energy Storage, Ronghe Yuanshu, Kelu Electronics, Sungrow, and CATL have introduced integrated cabinets with capacities of 418 kWh, 500 kWh, 752 kWh, and 836 kWh.
While standard products may represent the lowest production cost for companies, they are not necessarily the best solutions for users. Even within the unified form of outdoor integrated cabinets, an increasing number of companies are launching energy storage products with varying capacities to cater to diverse industrial and commercial scenarios. The overseas industrial and commercial energy storage market is more complex than the domestic market, with significant differences in grid infrastructure across regions and varied scenario demands, making outdoor integrated cabinets unsuitable for every situation. Even though Yilan Technology was one of the first proponents of outdoor integrated cabinets for industrial and commercial energy storage, CEO He Shaoqiang emphasizes that different countries and application scenarios require different technologies and solutions.
Containerized energy storage systems, which are often overlooked by many companies, prove to be more suitable in large off-grid scenarios like those in Africa, where unique needs arise. It is well-known that the energy storage demand scenarios in developed markets like Europe differ greatly from those in developing regions like Asia, Africa, and Latin America. Furthermore, there are distinctions even within Europe, such as between Eastern and Western Europe. The demand for peak shaving and valley filling is prevalent in Europe, while in Northern and Eastern European islands, microgrids combining solar and storage are more common. In Africa, frequent power outages necessitate energy storage systems capable of seamless grid connection and disconnection, while Southeast Asian islands predominantly require off-grid power solutions.
“Outdoor cabinets are a good product, but for medium and large industrial and commercial energy storage projects, especially in off-grid scenarios, they may not be the most suitable option due to lower system efficiency and economics compared to container systems,” He Shaoqiang stated. He believes that even when outdoor integrated cabinets are technically appropriate, they may not be suitable for engineering purposes, as significant on-site wiring work is required, including connections for communication lines and cables.
Telongmei Energy Storage is one of the earliest companies to explore overseas industrial energy storage, having implemented over a hundred projects across Europe, Asia, and Africa. In addition to their standard 233 kWh liquid-cooled commercial cabinets, Telongmei has launched MW-scale solar storage systems that utilize standard 20-foot and 40-foot containerized integration suitable for large-scale industrial and commercial energy storage and solar charging scenarios. Furthermore, Kubo Energy’s PowerCombo large-scale industrial energy storage system is also an early mature product in the overseas market. For small high-end commercial scenarios, Sige New Energy’s stacked battery storage system has demonstrated significant competitiveness. The industry-first Sige solar storage charging integrated machine, SigenStor, employs modular and stackable product design, seamlessly integrating photovoltaic inverters, DC charging modules, energy storage batteries, PCS, and EMS, making it the most integrated energy storage product in the industry.
Beyond outdoor integrated cabinets, containerized and stacked battery energy storage systems have their respective markets. The diverse and decentralized scenarios are giving rise to customized solutions. In the domestic market, industrial and commercial energy storage applications primarily focus on arbitrage from peak and valley pricing, generally involving high energy consumption and grid-connected operations, with products typically ranging from 200 kWh to 500 kWh. However, looking at the global industrial and commercial energy storage market reveals that, in addition to the typical peak and valley pricing arbitrage, there are numerous other demands such as off-grid backup power, solar storage microgrids, electricity spot market trading, frequency regulation services, solar charging, and power quality management.
In 2024, attention will be focused on district energy storage, which is aimed at enhancing solar consumption, alleviating transformer overload during peak electricity usage, addressing issues caused by excessive distributed generation, resolving long-term low voltage at the distribution network’s end, and correcting three-phase imbalance and low power factor at transformers. However, companies that have successfully implemented district energy storage projects have discovered that the problems each district faces are quite distinct, and straightforward solutions involving just a few energy storage cabinets are insufficient. There are higher requirements for communication timeliness, hardware safety and stability, control strategies, and responsiveness. Companies like Rongheyuan Storage are offering targeted solutions and service models for district energy storage scenarios.
“Many domestic companies tend to directly export their products overseas for different applications, but that approach is often unworkable,” He Shaoqiang remarked. In off-grid emergency backup scenarios in regions like Africa and Latin America, weak grid structures, frequent outages, and power shortages are common, necessitating energy storage systems capable of fast charging and slow discharging, as well as seamless grid connection and disconnection, with some instances requiring overcapacity solutions. In overseas islands, remote rural areas, and mining regions, solar storage microgrid scenarios require energy storage systems that can not only switch between grid-connected and off-grid modes but also possess grid formation and black start capabilities.
In developed countries’ industrial and commercial energy storage markets, there is a need to address transformer expansions and reduce impacts on the grid, alongside demands for electricity spot trading, frequency regulation services, and solar charging, all of which place higher demands on the rapid discharge capabilities of energy storage systems. Based on Nordic customer requirements, Heng Intelligent has developed a 1C industrial energy storage system, which has delivered 100 MWh overseas by last year. As ultra-fast charging power evolves towards the megawatt level, industrial and commercial energy storage systems will need to upgrade to 2C or even higher discharge rates. Recently, BYD announced a megawatt fast-charging solution, with an 800 kW/225 kWh energy storage cabinet achieving a discharge rate exceeding 3C.
Whether regarding changes in capacity and specifications or the development of specialized functions for segmented scenarios, it is evident that industrial and commercial energy storage systems are progressively shedding their homogeneous label, with an increasing number of companies introducing situational and personalized solutions. By 2025, industrial and commercial energy storage systems will further explore segmented scenarios and evolve towards greater diversity.
