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

From ESS News 

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.

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 new-type storage projects that support system reliability – and are not built as mandatory co-located storage for renewables – can be brought under the generation-side capacity pricing framework on a project-list basis.

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.

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