"Since the 14th Five-Year Plan, our country's new energy storage development policy has been initially built, and the new energy storage industry has developed steadily. By the end of 2024, 73.76 million kW/168 million kWh of new energy storage has been completed and put into operation, accounting for more than 40% of the world's total installed capacity. Recently, at the press conference for the third quarter of 2025, Bian Guangqi, deputy director of the Department of Energy Conservation and Science and Technology Equipment of the National Energy Administration, introduced the overall progress of our country's energy storage industry. Among them, it is particularly emphasized that "new energy storage technology routes are blooming, covering the main technical routes of global engineering applications, and the level of scheduling and application has been steadily improved, which strongly supports the construction of new power systems."

The "China New Energy Storage Development Report (2025)" released at the meeting also highly affirmed the development of energy storage technology in our country: "Technological innovation practice has taken solid steps." The report said that in 2024, the National Energy Administration will release 56 new energy storage pilot projects, covering more than ten technical routes, and many pilot projects are the first engineering applications in China, showing an overall diversified development trend, effectively promoting breakthroughs in key technologies and equipment for new energy storage.

Technology is the core pillar of highquality industrial development, and the innovative achievements of our country's energy storage technology are impressive, with many breakthroughs deserving recognition. However, amidst rapid progress, some ecological concerns inevitably arise in the industry. For instance, the recent turmoil of patent litigation among enterprises has been intensifying, drawing attention and prompting reflections from various parties.

In the view of many industry insiders, these legal disputes are ostensibly the protection of intellectual property rights, but deeply reflect the anxiety of market competition in the rapid expansion of the industry. The turmoil one after another is more like the epitome of the upgrading of the competitive situation in the energy storage industry, focusing on market share, price positioning, human resources, etc., in fact, it is no longer limited to the confrontation between enterprises, but has become a manifestation of the industry's involution competition, and even inadvertently leads to the "chaos" of the competition that should be orderly.

In addition to patent issues, take the muchtalkedabout "price war" as an example. In the past two years, the price of energy storage cells has dropped by more than 50%. In addition, the average bid price of lithium battery energy storage systems fell to 0.574 yuan/Wh last year, a yearonyear decrease of 47.82%, and further dropped to 0.4848 yuan/Wh in the first half of this year, a yearonyear decrease of 29.94%. Although the installed capacity in the first half of 2025 increased by 120% yearonyear to exceed 80GW, the average profit margin of the industry fell from 15% in 2022 to less than 5%, and the quotation of battery cells of some companies fell below the break-even line of 0.4 yuan/Wh.

Reasonable cost reduction can benefit many parties, but the price fight by winning the bid at a low price not only directly leads to the serious squeeze of the profit margins of enterprises, but also may weaken the source of technological innovation of enterprises, which in turn has an impact on the technical depth of the whole industry. As analyzed in the "2025 China New Energy Storage Industry Project Bidding and Price Analysis Report" released by the China Chemical and Physical Power Industry Association: "When there is a price reversal, we still need to pay attention to the speed of capacity clearance, the speed of industry reshuffle and the increase in overseas demand." But before that, we should be highly vigilant about the equipment operation safety problems that may be brought about by winning the bid at a low price. ”

Fight for technology, price, and talent...... With the accelerated expansion of the industry, the ecological concerns that have not yet appeared in the early stage of development have now been put in front of the stage, and the grim situation cannot be ignored.

Should the energy storage industry compete? The answer is yes, moderate involution and multidimensional competition can motivate enterprises to continuously improve their own strength and help promote the continuous progress of the whole industry. However, what the industry needs is not disorderly involution competition, but innovation as the first competitiveness, and it is necessary to move from traditional competitive thinking to quality and efficiency and win-win cooperation.

The "China New Energy Storage Development Report (2025)" points out that it is necessary to "combine the needs of multiple application scenarios of new power systems, clarify the development direction of new energy storage technology, and integrate advantageous forces to carry out key problems". In the "Blue Book on the Development of New Power Systems" released earlier, the National Energy Administration also made it clear that our country will cover the operation of multiple types of energy storage systems covering the whole cycle from 2045 to 2060. The above expressions all mean that multi-technology parallel breakthroughs can meet the development needs. Behind the diversification of technology, it is necessary for a hundred flowers to bloom and a hundred schools of thought to contend, and enterprises of different types and advantages to learn from each other, cooperate with each other, and compete with each other in the market to jointly promote the vigorous development of the industry. Obviously, the way of focusing on internal involution and internal friction is not conducive to jointly protecting the health ecology.

"There is nothing wrong with patent protection, but if leading companies invest too much energy in litigation, the entire industry may fall into a 'mutual harm mode'. The core mission of the energy storage industry is technological breakthroughs, not patent blockades. Some experts believe that the confrontation between leaders such as CATL and other enterprises is essentially a structural contradiction between patent barriers and the demand for technology iteration - when technological innovation stagnates, enterprises tend to maintain their advantages through litigation rather than research and development, which may form a vicious circle of "innovation suffocation", which is contrary to the direction of the country to cultivate new quality productivity and promote green development.

In this regard, the Energy Storage Special Committee of the China Energy Research Association has also publicly called for the competition in the energy storage industry to return to the source of technology, and the policy side needs to improve the patent protection and antimonopoly balance mechanism to avoid involution damaging the global competitiveness of China's energy storage. A number of industry enterprises have also cooperated in the public arena to express their positions: abandon the traditional thinking of involution competition, jointly promote the orderly iterative upgrading of the industry, focus more on the innovation and research of core technologies, intensive cultivation of market segments, and the development of incremental markets, and advocate the development model of co-prosperity and symbiosis.

It is worth mentioning that the state has spoken out intensively and introduced policies to correct deviations, and the industry level has also begun to take the initiative to break the situation, striving to call for "anti-involution" in various ways.

In December last year, the Zhongguancun Energy Storage Industry Technology Alliance organized nearly 30 leading enterprises to hold a closeddoor seminar to promote the implementation of industry selfdiscipline conventions against involution and antibelowcost price competition; In February this year, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology and other eight departments jointly issued the "Action Plan for the Highquality Development of New Energy Storage Manufacturing Industry", which clearly strengthened capacity monitoring and early warning, prevented disorderly development, and strengthened the punishment of patent infringement and market monopoly, and forced the industry to return to the track of technological competition with hard policy constraints. In July this year, the relevant meeting emphasized that the management of lowprice disorderly competition of enterprises in accordance with laws and regulations, the orderly withdrawal of backward production capacity, and the direction for the healthy development of the industry...... From the country to the industry, the signal and attitude of making great efforts to break the involution are clear and clear.

On August 8, the Supreme People's Court issued the "Guiding Opinions on the Implementation of the Law of the People's Republic of China on the Promotion of the Private Economy", proposing 25 specific measures to judicially guarantee the development and growth of the private economy. Among them, it is particularly emphasized to ensure that all types of enterprises have fair access to innovation resources - strengthen anti-monopoly and anti-unfair competition justice, and undermine fair competition and disrupt market order in accordance with laws and regulations. Try monopoly dispute cases in the field of science and technology in accordance with the law, accurately determine the boundaries between the normal exercise of intellectual property rights and the abuse of intellectual property rights to exclude and restrict competition, ensure that all types of enterprises have fair access to innovation resources, realize the rational allocation and efficient use of innovation resources, and actively promote the construction of a unified market.

At the same time, it is also necessary to recognize that "anti-involution" is not equivalent to simply restricting and stopping competition, but is to guide the industry from barbaric growth to rational prosperity. Compared with blindly fighting for price, homogenization or even going to court, whose products are safer, more effective, more advanced, and more cost-effective is the focus of more attention. Especially at present, technology iteration, scenario innovation and global layout continue to deepen, and the energy storage industry is in a critical period towards high-quality development. Optimize the industrial ecology, avoid repeated investment and waste of resources by rationally planning production capacity, eliminating backward technologies, and strengthening upstream and downstream coordination, and build an industrial chain of "innovation and joint research, cost sharing, and market sharing" to form a cluster effect; Deeply cultivate the global market, serve the world's energy transition with Chinese technology, and expand overseas high value-added markets with the advantages of large-scale application experience, which can not only alleviate domestic competitive pressure, but also enhance the global discourse.

In the final analysis, enterprises are the ultimate breakers of "anti-involution". The use of unconventional means such as patent wars, price wars, and public opinion wars will not only affect innocent energy storage companies, but will also lead to the loss of control of the originally orderly competition and the gradual distortion of the booming market, and even cast a shadow on the energy storage industry in the critical stage of high-quality development. Instead of spending time and energy on aspects that have nothing to do with "professionalism", it is better to abandon the narrow thinking of industrial bullying, jump out of the quagmire circle of internal friction, return to the origin of technological innovation and coordinated development, adhere to the equal emphasis on technological awe and business ethics, and work together to promote China's energy storage industry to become a leader in the global energy transition. From internal friction to symbiosis and win-win, the field of energy storage is urgent.

Source: @China Energy News