Economic Observer reporter Wang Yajie

Entering the fourth quarter of 2026, some energy storage power stations (new energy storage projects) are waiting for an "exam", which is the grid related test.

A person from a provincial-level power grid dispatch agency told the Economic Observer that there has been an increase in the number of energy storage power station projects waiting to undergo grid related tests in their province, and there have been queues. The equipment on the project has been installed and is only waiting for the grid to arrange the grid related test window. If problems are found during the online testing site, a new application must be made after the project is rectified.

This' onboarding exam '(i.e. grid related test) aims to test whether the energy storage power station can understand grid instructions, adjust charging and discharging in a timely manner, and accurately report how much electricity is left. At present, there is no large-scale backlog of grid related tests for energy storage power stations in the province, but the time left for projects to be put into operation by the end of the year is being shortened.

The reason why this exam suddenly became tense before the end of the year is due to a new regulation that is currently soliciting opinions. On September 30th, the Comprehensive Department of the National Energy Administration released the "Regulations on Grid connected Operation Management of Electric Power" (draft for comments), which clarifies that "grid connected operation is not allowed without an agreement" and includes new energy storage that can respond to dispatch instructions in management. And a large number of energy storage projects are accustomed to connecting to the grid at the end of the year to lock in capacity compensation and project cash flow nodes. The window for internet related experiments that can be arranged before the end of the year has become particularly tight.

As of October 14th, the draft for soliciting opinions is still open for public comment. The deadline for soliciting opinions is 30 days from the date of announcement and will end on October 30th. How to sign the agreement and arrange the experiment has become a concern for the interviewed enterprises.

A person from an energy storage enterprise under a state-owned energy company told Economic Observer that the negotiation of power grid connection agreements and the scheduling of testing by dispatching agencies are not entirely controlled by the owners. If the relevant requirements are further strictly implemented, companies need to include these tasks in the project plan in advance.

There have also been changes on the procurement side. The head of a department of an energy storage enterprise under another state-owned transportation infrastructure company said that some central enterprise operators explicitly stated in technical exchanges that they do not want the equipment to be repeatedly rectified after being transported to the site due to non-compliance with grid related indicators, which may delay grid connection.

The equipment manufacturers, operators, and investors interviewed by the Economic Observer are recalculating this period from their respective perspectives.

A project schedule has been rewritten

The grid connection experiences of more than 20 key projects of energy storage enterprises under the above-mentioned energy central enterprises are not the same.

The company insider explained that independent energy storage projects should, in principle, promote the signing of grid connection dispatch agreements before grid connection, and try to arrange key grid related tests in advance. However, in some areas, due to the impact of power grid connection manpower and access review cycles, there have been situations where the switch was first closed and then the protocol and testing procedures were improved.

The supporting energy storage for new energy also needs to follow the schedule of the main unit. In order to match the production nodes of new energy projects, some distribution and storage units will be prioritized for grid connection, and formal agreements will be signed and the full set of tests will be completed afterwards. The company insider said that this is a project arrangement formed under the background of past node grabbing.

The so-called 'grabbing nodes' refers to the engineering habit of prioritizing equipment grid connection and delaying agreements and testing procedures for new energy and energy storage projects in order to catch up with the year-end production and grid connection deadline. In the past, driven by capacity compensation and electricity price nodes, the end of the year often became the centralized window for grid connection, and relevant procedures were often completed after grid connection.

The draft for soliciting opinions proposes to sign a grid connected dispatch agreement in a timely manner, which is related to how the power station accepts dispatch and what responsibilities are borne by all parties during operation. The practice of closing the switch first and completing the procedures later mentioned in the interview by the reporter is an engineering practice introduced by the interviewee, and does not mean that the old rules allow for operation without an agreement.

The above-mentioned business personnel said that based on the experience of hundred megawatt level projects in Henan and other places, if the relevant requirements are implemented, agreement negotiations, reviews, and testing and debugging need to be arranged earlier. Concentrating on handling these matters only after the completion of construction may not meet the originally scheduled production time.

The above-mentioned dispatch agency personnel introduced that the grid connected dispatch agreement is usually led by the business department of the power grid enterprise, and the dispatch agency participates in the technical clause review. The review of the network related experimental plan, on-site organization, and result recognition shall be the responsibility of the dispatching agency. The specific responsible units for projects with different voltage levels may vary.

In the projects he worked on, when the agreement negotiations went smoothly, the negotiations took about 30 working days. This is not a nationwide unified processing time limit. If the access conditions are complex or there are differences between the two parties regarding assessment settlement and responsibility for abnormal working conditions, the negotiation time will be extended.

Some issues will be exposed during the experimental plan phase. These situations are directly related to the tightened requirements for internet related indicators in the draft for soliciting opinions. The new regulations include more new types of energy storage in management and provide clear requirements for scheduling interfaces and performance reporting, making it easier for designs that were not connected to grid standards in the early stages to expose problems during the planning phase. The above-mentioned dispatch agency personnel said that some projects did not fully integrate with the requirements of the power grid in the early stage design, and the interfaces of the energy storage converter and energy management system did not meet the dispatch specifications. The plan needs to be repeatedly modified. Upon arrival at the site, problems that were not discovered in the factory simulation may also arise, which will have a greater impact on the project schedule.

The dispatching agency has been guiding the owners to advance the technical integration and synchronously clarify the network related indicators during the access review stage. But even with sufficient preparation, the experiment is still constrained by the operation mode of the power grid and cannot be fully arranged according to the owner's construction plan.

The enterprise insider said that the loan disbursement and capital arrangement of some energy storage projects are linked to grid connection and production. Node delay will disrupt the funding plan. The longer the on-site time of debugging personnel, the higher the manpower and testing expenses, and the additional investment required for equipment optimization and renovation.

This is also the reason why companies hope to clarify the implementation requirements as soon as possible. For new projects, the above-mentioned business personnel hope to determine the timing of various tasks in advance. For power stations that are already in operation, he proposed that the situation should be differentiated and time should be left for supplementary procedures and technical improvements.

Grid Identity

After the battery is installed, an energy storage power station still needs the cooperation of a complete control system to execute the instructions of the power grid.

The technical director of a leading domestic power battery listed company told reporters that even if a single device passes the factory inspection and is assembled on site, the entire system may still fail the online test. When using equipment from different manufacturers in combination, cross device collaboration is particularly prone to problems.

The energy storage inverter is responsible for the conversion of electrical energy between the battery and the grid. The energy management system is equivalent to the "brain" of the power station, arranging charging and discharging. The battery management system monitors the battery status. Communication between them is not smooth, which may cause delays in instruction transmission and may also report errors in remaining battery life.

The technical leader stated that some fault voltage ride through failures and power response lag issues are related to the underlying control algorithm of the inverter. However, inaccurate battery sampling and system analysis data errors can also affect the results, so it is not enough to only check one device.

The so-called fault voltage ride through refers to the requirement for a power station to maintain operation even when the grid voltage drops or rises within a specified range for a short period of time. Otherwise, when the power grid fluctuates, energy storage may not be able to provide the necessary support.

The person in charge of the energy storage enterprise under the state-owned transportation infrastructure mentioned above introduced that the enterprise currently conducts relevant simulations and semi physical simulations before leaving the factory according to national standards and local power grid technical conditions. The latter allows the real control device to be connected to a simulated environment to test in advance how it reacts under different operating conditions.

If the requirements for network verification are further moved forward, the energy storage enterprise under the central enterprise of transportation infrastructure will increase such testing investment, and try to keep control parameters and data transmission issues in the factory as much as possible to solve. The person in charge emphasized that the simulation in the factory cannot cover all the working conditions of the real power grid, and on-site measurements cannot be omitted.

The technical leader mentioned that research and development needs to strengthen the joint verification of battery management systems, energy management systems, and inverters. When the power grid issues high-power commands, the control system also needs to combine the remaining battery capacity and health status to avoid overcharging, overdischarging, and accelerate battery degradation.

Behind these technical requirements is the definition of energy storage capacity by grid management.

The draft for soliciting opinions has included new types of energy storage that can respond to power dispatch instructions in the scope of this regulation.

An energy expert who participated in the discussion of the above-mentioned draft for soliciting opinions told reporters that in the past, some new energy distribution and storage facilities were built to meet supporting indicators and had complete hardware, but they rarely participated in regulation after completion. The installed capacity in statistics may not necessarily be accessible to the power grid.

The energy expert said that grid connected operation management needs to clarify the scheduling relationships, assessment rules, and safety responsibilities of these power plants. Energy storage that is only for internal use and does not accept dispatch calls, the applicable method needs to be determined based on specific scenarios. A complete market identity also requires the connection of supporting rules such as trading and ancillary services.

Industry Shift

The person in charge of the energy storage enterprise under the state-owned transportation infrastructure mentioned above said that in the past six months, owners of independent energy storage projects have inquired about the frequency response speed, reliability of electricity reporting, and even the pass rate of previous project network related tests during technical exchanges and bidding Q&A. In earlier years, procurement personnel were more focused on capacity, price, and delivery time, and now the issues raised are more detailed than in the past.

The change in demand has not yet covered all projects.

The energy storage business manager of a leading company in the photovoltaic inverter industry told reporters that new energy storage projects planned to participate in auxiliary services or independent market transactions have higher requirements for scheduling performance. Projects that mainly undertake new energy supporting indicators still prioritize cost. The enterprise optimizes the inverter control algorithm on the product side, upgrades the interface adaptation between the station energy management system and the dispatch master station, and provides network simulation reports and operating condition test data. For projects that are only for internal use, companies will configure different solutions to avoid unnecessary cost increases.

The energy storage business manager mentioned above said that different overseas markets already have their own grid connection certification requirements, and relevant delivery experience can be referred to. Domestic projects still need to adapt to local power grid conditions and cannot simply copy a set of processes.

Operators still need to deal with inventory at the moment. The above-mentioned dispatch agency personnel suggest that power stations with incomplete agreement procedures and power stations with hardware defects should be classified and arranged for rectification. The specific implementation method still needs to be determined based on official documents.

The energy experts who participated in the discussion of the draft for soliciting opinions mentioned above said that relevant departments are collecting feedback from the industry chain. In addition to the transition period, enterprises are also concerned about the testing criteria and the conditions that need to be retested after batch replacement of equipment. How to apply self use energy storage and integrated source grid load storage projects is also a feedback issue.

The investment side has adjusted its due diligence focus. Energy storage investor Zhang Wei told reporters that in the past, some projects used the physical grid connection on December 31st as the starting point for cash flow, and the risk weight of the agreement and trial closure was relatively low. Now she will understand the access conditions, protocol negotiation progress, and trial plan, and add extension scenarios in the calculation.

Delay in grid connection will prolong the capital occupation time and lower the expected investment return. Zhang Wei said that due diligence should not only focus on how much capacity compensation the local government provides, but also verify the conditions under which the project generates these revenues.

Zhou Shengmin, a practitioner in the energy storage industry in the northwest region, told Economic Observer reporters that he had been in contact with projects in Shaanxi that had been included in the capacity compensation list but were unable to operate due to grid connection obstacles. The expected income on the declaration list has not been converted into actual received capacity electricity bills.

Even if the experiment passes, the project still needs to undergo scheduling assessment after being put into operation. Zhou Shengmin said that capacity compensation corresponds to actual operational performance, and failure to output as required may result in a deduction of compensation. The successful grid connection test cannot replace the subsequent performance.

Zhang Wei will therefore evaluate the completeness of procedures, scheduling performance, and revenue realization conditions together. She said that when transferring energy storage assets, buyers will also pay attention to this information. Just looking at how many batteries are installed is not enough to judge the value of the project. But if the market revenue falls short of expectations, power plants with qualified performance will also face return pressure.

(At the request of the interviewee, Zhang Wei is using a pseudonym)

(Author Wang Yajie)