CATL, Gotion lead China’s $26b battery storage push

Chinese battery makers, including CATL and Gotion High-tech, plan to add over 600 GWh of new energy storage capacity in the first two months of 2026. The move highlights surging global demand for renewable power infrastructure.

Nineteen mainland producers are set to invest 180 billion yuan, or US$26.3 billion, in new lithium-ion battery plants.

The projects are expected to add 900 GWh of annual capacity once completed, with about 70% for energy storage and 30% for EVs, while some plants are due to start production in late 2026.

The planned additions are about 10 times the 58 GWh of total capacity installed across the US in 2025.

🔗 Source: South China Morning Post

🧠 Food for thought

Implications, context, and why it matters.

China’s battery build-out runs on plunging costs and towers over global volumes

Plans for more than 600 GWh of new energy storage would exceed twice BloombergNEF’s estimate of 247 GWh of global energy storage deployments in 2025, putting China’s scale in stark relief 1.
Lower prices are helping drive the build, after a China Energy Engineering Corporation auction for lithium-iron-phosphate battery systems produced a record-low quoted tariff of about CNY0.37 (US$0.051) per watt-hour in July 2025 2.
Demand trends back the shift toward stationary systems, since stationary storage demand jumped 51% in 2025 while electric-vehicle battery demand rose 26% 3.

This expansion collides with Western trade barriers

China’s manufacturing surge is landing as Western governments raise import hurdles, bringing China’s scale into conflict with Western industrial policy.
The US lifted Section 301 tariffs (trade penalties applied under a US law used to respond to unfair foreign trade practices) to 25% from 7.5% on Chinese-origin lithium-ion batteries, which helped push US battery imports to a five-year low, according to Benchmark Mineral Intelligence, a battery supply-chain research firm 4.
The European Union has also set anti-subsidy duties of up to 35.3% on battery electric vehicles from China 5.
That leaves Western energy and auto developers with few substitute suppliers, since China accounts for around 85% of global battery cell production capacity 6.