CATL Partners With Leading Solar PV Inverter Firm Sungrow

Chinese battery giant CATL announced on September 4 that it had discussed global cooperation with Sungrow Power Supply (“Sungrow”), the leading solar photovoltaic (PV) inverter provider, in new energy fields such as energy storage, and that the both sides have formally signed a strategic cooperation agreement.

According to the agreement, CATL and Sungrow will give full play to their respective advantages and jointly explore the global integrated PV and energy storage market. The two sides will expand cooperation in product innovation and global application of energy storage systems, jointly promote industrial synergy, and help the sustainable development of the new energy industry.

As the world’s biggest battery maker, CATL is not only involved in the automotive field, but has laid out the energy storage battery business from the very beginning.

At present, the company’s energy storage battery products can be used in the field of power generation, providing energy storage facilities for solar or wind power generation, and have also been applied in the fields of power transmission, distribution and consumption, including the energy storage of industrial enterprises, commercial buildings, data centers, charging stations, communication base station backup batteries, households and other scenarios.

According to its semi-annual report, the operating income of the company’s energy storage system reached 12.736 billion yuan ($1.84 billion) in the first half of the year, up 171.41% year-on-year. At present, the company has reached strategic cooperations with head energy enterprises such as China Energy Investment Corporation (China Energy), State Power Investment Corporation (SPIC), China Huadian Corporation, China Three Gorges Corporation and China Energy Engineering Group, in the field of energy storage batteries.

This cooperation with Sungrow reveals the importance CATL attaches to energy storage business. Sungrow is a Chinese key high-tech enterprise that develops, produces, sells and provides services for solar PV inverters, wind power converters and other power supply. The company is a leading PV inverter and wind energy converter provider in China, with completely independent intellectual property rights. Its main products include photovoltaic inverters, wind energy converters, energy storage systems, electric vehicle motor controllers and so on.

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Since 2022, good news has been coming out of the energy storage industry. The “14th Five-Year Plan for New Energy Storage Development Implementation Plan” issued by China’s National Energy Administration clearly lists energy storage as a key and priority development direction. On the demand side, according to data from the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, China’s output of lithium batteries for energy storage reached 32GWh in the first half of 2022, up 113.3% year-on-year. Gaogong Industry Institute Co., Ltd. (GGII) forecast that the shipments of domestic energy storage batteries are going to exceed 90GWh in 2022, with a year-on-year increase of 88%.