The commercialization of flow battery energy storage is accelerating, with the installed capacity of commissioned, under-construction, and planned projects growing rapidly. What specific projects are there? ESPLAZA LDES Network has conducted a comprehensive statistical analysis on this.
Commissioned Installed Capacity: 1161.25MW/4835.89MWh
As of July 2025, according to ESPLAZA statistics, 75 flow battery energy storage projects in China have been completed and commissioned, with a cumulative installed capacity of 1161.25MW/4835.89MWh and an average energy storage duration of approximately 4.2 hours.
Among them, the newly commissioned installed capacity from January to July 2025 was 324.81MW/1497.24MWh; the commissioned installed capacity in 2024 was 610.14MW/2447.86MWh; the commissioned installed capacity in 2023 was 64.6MW/269.69MWh; and the cumulative commissioned installed capacity before 2023 was 161.65MW/621.1MWh.
In terms of technical routes, vanadium flow battery energy storage projects are the most numerous, with a cumulative total of 64, accounting for 86%; there are 4 iron-chromium flow battery energy storage projects, accounting for 5%; 3 zinc-bromine flow battery energy storage projects, accounting for 4%; and 4 other flow battery energy storage projects, involving aqueous organic flow batteries, sulfur-iron flow batteries, and all-iron flow batteries, accounting for 5%.
Under-construction Installed Capacity: 2239.25MW/10824MWh
As of now, according to ESPLAZA statistics, there are 36 flow battery energy storage projects under construction, with a cumulative installed capacity of 2239.25MW/10824MWh and an average energy storage duration of approximately 4.7 hours. This is also the first time that the under-construction installed capacity in the industry has exceeded 10GWh.
Among the 36 flow battery energy storage projects, vanadium flow batteries dominate with 32 projects, confirming their technical maturity and market recognition; 5 projects involving iron-based/iron-chromium, zinc-iron, and aqueous organic flow batteries are mostly pilot demonstration projects.
The installed capacity of under-construction projects shows a trend of large-scale development, with GWh-level single projects beginning to emerge, and more than 20 projects at the 100MWh level.
Application scenarios have broken through the limitation of a single grid side: about 60% of the projects focus on grid-side peak shaving and new energy integration, while extending to innovative scenarios such as “source-grid-load-storage integration”, “vehicle-storage integration”, and “shared energy storage”, expanding the adaptation boundary with the characteristics of “safety + long life”.
In terms of geographical distribution, it follows the dual-drive logic of “new energy-rich areas + load centers”: wind and solar bases in Yunnan, Xinjiang, Jilin and other regions are clustered to solve the dilemma of wind and solar curtailment; load centers in Shanghai, Guangdong, Henan and other places are gradually penetrating to serve the peak-valley arbitrage needs of industrial and commercial sectors, data centers and other user sides.
Planned Installed Capacity: 4021MW/18686MWh
According to ESPLAZA statistics, there are currently more than 40 planned flow battery energy storage projects in China, with a cumulative installed capacity of approximately 4021MW/18686MWh.
In terms of technical routes, the flow battery technologies involved in the planned projects include vanadium, iron-chromium, zinc-bromine, zinc-iron, iron-based, etc. Among them, vanadium flow batteries occupy an absolute dominant position: the number of projects exceeds 80%, with power covering 5MW to 300MW and capacity ranging from 20MWh to 1800MWh, making it the most industrially mature technical route; there are 4 iron-chromium flow battery projects, with power concentrated between 30MW and 100MW and capacity between 120MWh and 500MWh, which have entered the commercial promotion stage; there is only 1 project each for zinc-bromine, zinc-iron, and iron-based flow batteries, which are still in the technical demonstration and verification stage.
Forecast of Newly Added Installed Capacity in 2025
According to official data from the National Energy Administration, as of the end of 2023, the cumulative installed capacity of newly built and commissioned new energy storage projects nationwide reached 31.39 million kW/66.87 million kWh, with flow battery energy storage accounting for 0.4%, corresponding to an installed capacity of 125.56 MW.
As of the end of 2024, the cumulative installed capacity of newly built and commissioned new energy storage projects nationwide reached 73.76 million kW/168 million kWh, of which flow battery energy storage accounted for 1.0%, corresponding to an installed capacity of 737.6 MW.
Based on the above data, the installed capacity of flow battery energy storage increased by 487.4% year-on-year in 2024.
According to the actual progress of current under-construction projects, ESPLAZA LDES Network predicts that the newly added installed capacity of flow battery energy storage in China is expected to reach approximately 1500MW/6000MWh by the end of 2025.
