LDES Council China Roadshow 2026: Scaling long duration energy storage in a market moving at speed
From the world’s first vanadium flow battery gigawatt-hour (GWh) scale factory in Dalian to the largest energy storage exhibition in the world in Beijing, the LDES Council’s inaugural 2026 China Roadshow brought a global delegation face to face with a market deploying long duration energy storage at a scale and pace that is reshaping industry expectations worldwide.
LDES Council’s 2026 China Roadshow, co-hosted with Rongke Power and ExxonMobil, convened LDES Council 11 members and 45 participants from across the global energy storage ecosystem alongside Chinese developers, grid operators, state think tanks, research associations, and policy organisations. Running from 29 March to 2 April, it combined a closed-door technical forum, full-day site visits, participation in the Energy Storage International Exhibition and Conference (ESIE), a meeting with representatives at Global Energy Interconnection Development and Cooperation Organization (GEIDCO) and an invitation-only policy workshop with the China Energy Storage Alliance (CNESA).
Members arrived with different priorities and varying levels of familiarity with the Chinese market, with questions spanning safety, manufacturing scale, commercial collaboration, grid integration, and what Chinese technologies and business models might mean for their own markets. The programme was designed to address all of it through direct access to the developers, policy representatives, and researchers shaping LDES deployment in China.
A market in transition: from demonstration to deployment at scale
The central observation emerging from the delegation’s engagement was unambiguous: China is not piloting long duration energy storage. It is deploying it. Technologies including vanadium redox flow batteries (VRFBs), compressed air energy storage, liquid air energy storage, gravity storage, concentrated solar with thermal energy storage, and pumped thermal energy storage are all being developed at commercial scale, often integrated into or alongside existing power infrastructure including coal-fired plants.
China’s approach reflects a strategic recognition that, while the current operational need for storage is centred in the four-to-six hour range, building LDES capacity today is essential to securing grids and decarbonising energy systems over the coming decade. The scale of investment, public and private, and the speed of project development underscore a level of ambition that few other markets have yet matched.
Momentum behind long duration energy storage continues to build worldwide as governments sharpen their focus on system flexibility, resilience and affordability. As face grids face increasing strain and renewable generation grows, LDES is increasingly recognised as a key tool to maintain reliability, reduce curtailment and support cost–effective decarbonisation.
“The biggest takeaway is the scale at which projects are being built, both in terms of project size and the pace of buildout. China is recognising the need for massive investment in LDES, and acting on it.”
Seeing LDES scale in operation: the Dalian site visits with Rongke Power
Day two of the programme was devoted entirely to on-site visits at Rongke Power’s facilities in Dalian: the world’s first 100 MW / 400 MWh vanadium flow battery system, the world’s first Vanadium Flow Battery gigawatt-hour (GWh) scale factory and one of the world’s largest vanadium electrolyte production facilities at 4.5 GWh annual capacity.
The Dalian station was a particular moment of clarity. Sited next to a coal plant at the heart of a city, it operates with the full confidence of the national grid operator, delivering grid stability, peak shaving, frequency regulation, renewable integration, black start capability, and auxiliary power supply at city scale.
Policy and market design: what is enabling China’s acceleration
In Beijing, sessions with the Global Energy Interconnection Development and Cooperation Organisation (GEIDCO) and CNESA, alongside discussions with Chinese developers and state research institutes, surfaced the policy and market architecture underpinning China’s LDES trajectory. Nine current policies directly support LDES growth in China.
The incoming 15th Five-Year Plan is expected to strengthen this further, with clear national and provincial targets creating investment certainty. Market design is evolving to recognise the full system value of long duration storage, particularly its role in grid stability, renewable integration, and long-term flexibility, and demonstration projects, industrial policy, and infrastructure planning are being coordinated to enable rapid scale-up rather than proceeding in isolation.
China’s state-supported research ecosystem, comprising think tanks, universities, industry associations, and research institutes, is actively building the evidence base for LDES and advocating for its integration into regulatory frameworks, reinforcing commercial momentum with analytical credibility.
The closed-door forum on 30 March, which brought the delegation together with GEIDCO speakers and Chinese developers for structured discussion on bankability, revenue frameworks, and market design, made clear that the commercial architecture of the Chinese LDES market is as important as the technology itself.
Memorandum of Understanding with Chinese Energy Storage Alliance (CNESA): Connecting the world’s leading deployment market with global scale-up efforts
Signed during the Roadshow, this agreement formalises collaboration between CNESA, a central on driving long duration energy storage scale-up globally. Areas of collaboration include knowledge exchange, joint market development, standards alignment, and the coordination of deployment pathways across regions.
The agreement reflects the stage the LDES sector has reached. China is already operating at commercial scale, while many other markets are still developing the policy and financial frameworks to follow. Collaboration of this kind accelerates that process, connecting deployment experience with global market-building efforts at a moment when the pace of scale-up matters.
“This MOU connects the world’s leading deployment market with the leading global coalition shaping LDES scale-up, accelerating the transition from fragmented pilots to coordinated, bankable, system-level deployment worldwide.”
Implications for the global LDES market
For delegation members and the broader LDES ecosystem, the Roadshow crystallised several observations with relevance beyond China. The integration of policy, investment, innovation, and industrial strategy in a single national framework has allowed China to move faster and at larger scale than markets where these elements remain fragmented. The bankability of projects, supported by demonstrated operational performance, vertically integrated supply chains, and regulatory clarity, is now a real and observable feature of the Chinese market, not a future aspiration.
International collaboration, standards, supply chain resilience, technology transfer, and cross-border investment can accelerate deployment elsewhere by shortening learning curves and reducing unnecessary duplication. The key lesson may be structural: markets that align policy signals, financial frameworks, and deployment pathways around a shared long-term vision are demonstrably better positioned to scale.
Global energy systems need LDES deployed at 10 to 50 times current levels to integrate renewables and reach net zero. China is demonstrating what that trajectory can look like. The task now is to extend it.
2026 China Roadshow Delegation
Amazon · Energy Vault · ESB · ExxonMobil · Google · Hithium · Invinity Energy Systems · Kraftblock · Redox One · Rongke Power
The 2026 LDES Council China Roadshow is one of a series of market engagement programmes available exclusively to LDES Council members. To learn more about membership and visit ldescouncil.com/membership
About the Long Duration Energy Storage Council (LDES Council)
The Long Duration Energy Storage Council is a global organisation dedicated to advancing decarbonisation by accelerating the deployment of LDES solutions. The LDES Council provides fact-based guidance on LDES technologies, which include mechanical, thermal, electrochemical, and chemical solutions. With members operating in 20 countries, the LDES Council is committed to unlocking the full potential of LDES to ensure a resilient, reliable, and secure energy future for all.
To learn more about the LDES Council, visit www.ldescouncil.com
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