China sets ‘capacity price’ floor for grid-scale storage, tying payments to coal benchmarks

<p class="p1"><span class="s1">Beijing’s new rule lets standalone storage earn fixed-cost payments for availability, not energy delivered.</span></p><p><strong>From <a href="https://www.ess-news.com/2026/02/05/china-sets-capacity-price-floor-for-grid-scale-storage-tying-payments-to-coal-benchmarks/" rel="noopener" target="_blank">ESS News </a></strong></p>
<p>China’s top economic planner and energy regulator have moved to formalise a “capacity price” for standalone, grid-side energy storage, widening a mechanism originally designed for coal plants and offering investors a clearer route to recovering fixed costs.</p>
<p>In a joint notice issued on January 30 2026, the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) and the National Energy Administration (NEA) said qualified standalone <a href="https://www.ess-news.com/2026/01/29/china-added-66-43-gw-of-new-type-energy-storage-in-2025/">new-type storage</a> projects that support system reliability – and are not built as<a href="https://www.ess-news.com/2025/03/14/china-scraps-energy-storage-mandate-for-renewable-energy-plants/"> mandatory co-located storage for renewables</a> – can be brought under the generation-side capacity pricing framework on a project-list basis.</p>
<p>The policy defines storage capacity payments as compensation for “available capacity” (a fixed-cost recovery concept), rather than remuneration for electricity actually discharged – a distinction that is intended to stabilise cash flows for assets whose system value is often highest during a small number of tight peak periods.</p>
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