When the goal of "double carbon" is further promoted and the construction of new power system enters a critical period, energy storage, as the core support of the "source network load storage" system, is ushering in an unprecedented turning point of development. The "15th Five-Year Plan" is imminent, and this golden cycle, which is predicted by the industry as "300 million kilowatts of installed capacity", is no longer a simple scale expansion competition, but a deep change related to technological innovation, compliance management and ecological reconstruction. Whoever can understand the underlying logic of this change and keep the bottom line of compliance will be able to gain a firm foothold in the 100 billion market.

01 Policy Shift: Farewell to the Era of Compulsory Storage Allocation

     The primary signal of the "15th Five-Year Plan" energy storage change comes from the fundamental shift at the policy level-the era of compulsory storage of new energy has officially come to an end. Previously, in order to alleviate the problem of wind and light abandonment, many places took the allocation and storage as the precondition for the grid connection of new energy projects, and the proportion of allocation and storage rose from 8% to 30%, and even introduced the punishment measures of no allocation and storage and no dispatch, which guaranteed the consumption of new energy in the short term, but also increased the burden of enterprises, resulting in the chaos of low price involution.

     In 2025, the National Development and Reform Commission and the Energy Bureau clearly put forward that "energy storage should not be allocated as a precondition for the approval, grid connection and grid connection of new energy projects", marking the development of energy storage from "administrative compulsion" to "marketdriven". This shift is not to deny the value of energy storage, but to promote energy storage and new energy projects from "binding matching" to "collaborative optimization" through the guidance of "scientific allocation and on-demand construction". During the "15th Five-Year Plan" period, with the continuous improvement of the electricity market mechanism, independent energy storage will realize value realization through participating in spot trading, ancillary services and other market-oriented paths, and the policy focus will also focus on the establishment of a long-term development mechanism for energy storage, so as to lay a solid institutional foundation for the high-quality development of the industry.

02 Green Power Direct Connection: Breakthrough of New Energy Consumption

     New energy consumption has always been the core pain point of energy transformation, and the rise of green power direct connection is providing a breakthrough solution to this problem. For the first time at the national level, the definition of direct connection of green power is clearly defined, that is, new energy sources such as wind and solar power are directly connected to a single user through dedicated lines, and can choose to operate off-grid or grid-connected independently, which effectively realizes the local consumption of new energy sources and greatly reduces the dependence on the public power grid.

    During the "15th FiveYear Plan" period, the implementation of green power direct connection will be accelerated in multiple scenarios: the new load can be supported by the construction of new energy to achieve direct power supply, exportoriented enterprises can rely on the surrounding resources to explore green power direct connection, and the stock of new energy projects can also be transformed into direct connection mode after meeting the conditions. It is noteworthy that the policy has innovated the investment and operation mode, allowing joint venture construction between power and load parties, and locking in revenue through multiyear power purchase agreements. As the core regulation unit of the green power direct connection project, energy storage will play a key role in stabilizing the fluctuation of new energy output and ensuring the stability of power supply. With the improvement of the connection mechanism between the direct connection project and the power market, energy storage can also participate in the transaction through the surplus power grid to further enhance the economy of the project.

03 Zero Carbon Park: Main Battlefield of Industrial Carbon Reduction

    The industrial sector is the key battlefield for carbon reduction and emission reduction, and the zerocarbon park has become the core practice carrier of industrial carbon reduction. During the "15th FiveYear Plan" period, with the deepening of the "double carbon" goal, the construction of zerocarbon park will move from pilot demonstration to largescale promotion, and its core logic is to build a microenergy system of "distributed new energy + energy storage + flexible load", so as to realize energy self-sufficiency and zero carbon emission in the park.

     Energy storage plays the role of "energy hub" in the zerocarbon park: on the one hand, by storing the surplus power of distributed photovoltaic and wind power in the park, it solves the problems of intermittence and volatility of new energy and ensures the continuous power supply of the park; on the other hand, it reduces the energy cost of the park by means of peak and valley electricity price arbitrage and participating in demand response. At present, many zero-carbon parks have explored mature paths, such as improving energy self-sufficiency rate by allocating long-term energy storage, and realizing cross-seasonal peak shaving by combining hydrogen energy storage. In the next five years, as the cost of energy storage technology continues to decline and the level of intelligence improves, energy storage will be deeply integrated with the digital management system of the park, becoming an indispensable core support for the zero-carbon park, and promoting industrial carbon reduction from "passive emission reduction" to "active optimization".

04 Virtual Power Plant: Distributed Energy Value Amplifier

     The pain points of scattered scale and weak regulation ability of distributed energy are being cracked by virtual power plants. As a new power operation mode of aggregating distributed generation, energy storage and adjustable load, virtual power plant transforms decentralized resources into "virtual units" that can be accurately dispatched through the way of "turning parts into whole", and becomes the core path to activate the value of distributed energy during the "15th Five-Year Plan" period.

     At the policy level, the development direction of virtual power plants has been clearly defined to support their participation in medium and long-term, spot, ancillary services and other types of electricity market transactions. By aggregating a large number of distributed resources, virtual power plants can achieve largescale response to grid dispatching needs, release load and supplement power supply when power is tight, absorb surplus power when new energy is developed, and effectively enhance the flexibility of the power system. For example, a virtual power plant in a park aggregates distributed photovoltaic and industrial and commercial energy storage, and fully confirms its value amplification effect by participating in demand response with a single income of more than one million yuan. During the "15th FiveYear Plan" period, with the upgrading of information communication and intelligent control technology, virtual power plants will be upgraded from "single response" to "multiple services" to further tap the potential value of distributed energy.

05 Virtual Power Plant: Ancillary Services + Capacity Compensation

     The single profit model has been the core bottleneck restricting the development of virtual power plants, and the dual revenue mechanism of "ancillary services + capacity compensation" is opening up new profit space for them. In the field of ancillary services, virtual power plants can obtain compensation by providing frequency modulation, climbing, standby and other services. In 2024, the cumulative compensation cost of Shandong ancillary service market exceeded 1.8 billion yuan, which provided rich benefits for flexible regulation resources such as virtual power plants.

     The capacity compensation mechanism further guarantees the long-term benefits of the virtual power plant. Shandong has taken the lead in exploring the multi-profit model of virtual power plant "electric energy/regulation income + capacity compensation income + adjustable capacity lease income", which provides replicable experience for the whole country. During the "Fifteenth FiveYear Plan" period, with the construction of a unified national electricity market, the scope of virtual power plants participating in ancillary services will continue to expand, and the capacity compensation mechanism will be gradually improved. At the same time, the policy also supports virtual power plants to carry out valueadded services such as energysaving services, energy data analysis, carbon trading services, and further broaden the profit margin. This series of mechanism innovations will promote the virtual power plant from "policy-driven" to "market autonomy" and become one of the most potential growth tracks in the energy storage industry.