China's 2026-2030 storage plan sets 300 GW goal and encourages storage at data centres

China's National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) and National Energy Administration (NEA) on 13 November published a plan for new-type energy storage over the 15th Five-Year period, 2026 to 2030, that sets a goal of 300 GW installed nationwide by 2030 and encourages storage at data centres. The two bodies issued it jointly under notice No. 1565 of 2026 (发改能源〔2026〕1565号), dated 29 October.

The plan encourages data centres to be fitted with new-type storage in reasonable measure, to promote coordinated growth of computing and power. Under a heading on reliable energy for computing facilities, it provides for storage stations to be built, suited to local conditions, at the eight national computing hubs: Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei, the Yangtze River Delta, the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area, Chengdu-Chongqing, Guizhou, Inner Mongolia, Gansu and Ningxia. The same provision covers what the plan calls computing-electricity coordination zones, among them Qinghai, Xinjiang and Heilongjiang, and says backup services from storage shared across clusters are to be explored. According to the plan, this work serves the building of a national integrated computing network, and its aims are more reliable power supply to computing facilities and the safeguarding of data security.

The plan also supports the use of storage in microgrids, in direct lines from renewable generation, in projects that integrate generation, grid, load and storage, and in virtual power plants, to improve their ability to cover their own peaks and keep themselves in balance.

Alongside the 300 GW goal, the plan sets an average storage duration of about three hours, and says that by 2030 the sector should pass from a stage of growth in scale into a market-driven stage. It gives two more figures for 2030: about 50 to 60 GW of storage at renewable-energy bases, and about 140 GW of independent grid-side storage able to help secure supply at peak times.

On technology, the plan calls for faster upgrading of lithium-ion battery storage and wider use of sodium-ion storage, and for compressed-air, flow-battery and flywheel storage to move from pilot use to commercial use.