Driving large scale energy storage demand, China’s grid reforms and worldwide data centre growth accelerate the battery market surge.
A revamp of China’s electricity market, combined with surging global demand from data centres and renewable energy projects, is triggering a major boom for Chinese battery storage manufacturers that already dominate global supply.
Chinese companies are on track to lift global shipments of lithium ion battery cells for energy storage by about 75%, according to industry estimates. Exports of batteries used for energy storage and electric vehicles have exceeded $65 billion so far, reinforcing China’s position at the centre of a sector critical for backing up wind and solar power and supporting power hungry artificial intelligence data centres.
Demand is rising both at home and abroad. Domestically, data centre expansion, renewable energy growth and new policy incentives are lifting storage economics. Internationally, ageing power grids in Europe, rapid renewable deployment in the Middle East and a global wave of data centre construction are fuelling demand, analysts say.
China’s dominance is reflected in global rankings. All six of the world’s top energy storage cell suppliers are Chinese, and nine of the top ten companies are based in China, according to consultancy Infolink. UBS recently raised its forecast for global battery energy storage installations in 2026 by 25%, while the International Energy Agency expects global investment in battery storage to rise 16% this year to $66 billion.
