Lin ZhangChief Executive Officer · Essays & perspective
Storage market reform5 min read
Storage valued by the hours it serves
For several years much of China's grid storage was built because wind and solar projects could not connect without it. Now that the rule has gone, owners must show what each station earns from the grid, and boards should judge storage by its trading record rather than by gigawatt-hours installed.
Between 2021 and 2024 a large share of the battery storage built in China was built to satisfy a condition. Many provinces asked new wind and solar projects to pair themselves with storage, usually a stated share of their capacity for a stated number of hours, before they could be approved or connected. Developers met the condition by building batteries beside their own farms or by leasing capacity from independent stations like ours. Either way, the battery existed because a permit required it.
Electricity is worth only what the grid will pay for it at the moment it arrives, so a storage company should be judged by the hours it serves, never by the equipment it happens to own.
Battery and storage-system prices in China have fallen far below what many factories need to survive, and local support and lenders' patience keep the losses running. The industry will recover sooner if weak capacity is allowed to exit and buyers stop rewarding the lowest bid.
Chinese storage systems now win tenders around the world on price. The overseas buyers who matter most are judging something else: whether the supplier will still be there, with spare parts and engineers, when the station is fifteen years old.
Revenue in 2025
RMB 5.45 bn
System sales RMB 3.62 bn, owned stations RMB 1.32 bn, service RMB 0.51 bn
Owned storage in operation, December 2025
5.6 GWh
21 stations in Shandong, Inner Mongolia and Gansu
Station revenue from trading and compensation, first half of 2026
71%
Up from 44 per cent in 2024, after the end of mandatory pairing
A storage station earns its place by the hours it serves the grid, not by the rule that once required someone to build it.
I am chief executive of Qianyue Energy Storage Co., Ltd., a fictional privately founded company in Jinan, Shandong, that develops, owns and operates battery storage stations connected to the provincial grids of Shandong, Inner Mongolia and Gansu. We also assemble systems at Zibo for other owners in China and abroad, and service them for life. Revenue in 2025 was RMB 5.45 billion: RMB 3.62 billion from system sales, including RMB 1.57 billion of exports, RMB 1.32 billion from our 21 stations and RMB 0.51 billion from service.
I came to storage from the grid. I spent eight years planning transmission and building substations for a state-owned design institute, more than five connecting wind farms in Gansu when the grid could not carry their output, and five building a storage business inside a cell manufacturer. I joined Qianyue in 2019 and have led it since January 2021, answering to a board that seats our founder, a provincial state-owned investor, our growth investors and two independent directors.
The past three years have tested what kind of company we are. Equipment prices fell by more than half, the rule that had obliged wind and solar developers to lease our capacity was withdrawn, and a fire during commissioning in 2023 showed me how much of our safety depended on suppliers we had not examined closely enough. Each time we chose the slower and smaller answer. I now believe the central task of a chief executive in an industry growing this fast is deciding which growth the company should refuse.
Station revenue rebuilt around the market
After the 2025 reform ended mandatory pairing, we built a 24-person trading desk instead of discounting our leases. Trading and capacity compensation rose from 44 per cent of station revenue in 2024 to 71 per cent in the first half of 2026. We impaired two weaker stations by RMB 214 million rather than carry them at lease values.
No tender below the cost of a warranty
In the 2024 price war we set a floor of RMB 0.58 per watt-hour for a standard two-hour system and lost a 1.6 GWh framework tender that cleared near RMB 0.47. Domestic system revenue fell by RMB 1.5 billion that year; integration gross margin stayed at about 10 per cent.
Capital without a redemption clock
In 2022 we took RMB 2.6 billion from Mingquan Energy Investment Group, a provincial state-owned investor, in preference to a higher private valuation that carried a buy-back right. Our average cost on new project loans fell from 5.6 to 3.7 per cent within two years.
Safety rebuilt from the incoming cell
After a commissioning fire in August 2023 we halted energisation at two stations, replaced 31 per cent of their cells and began teardown sampling of every incoming cell batch. There has been no thermal event since across 5.6 GWh of operating storage.
Current focus
I am preparing the board's decision on our first four-hour stations in Shandong, a RMB 1.9 billion question about how far we trust the province's evening price spreads to persist. I am also negotiating the transfer of our two impaired Inner Mongolia stations and deciding whether our Australian business justifies local assembly.
Conversations I welcome
I intend to stay at Qianyue. With our board's agreement, I would consider one independent directorship at a listed company outside batteries, storage and our shareholders' businesses, joining a strategy or audit committee first and giving about thirty days a year. I also speak occasionally to grid, finance and manufacturing audiences.
Beyond the page
The record behind the perspective.
In the boardroom
Qianyue Energy Storage Co., Ltd.Executive director and chief executive · 2021–present
Qianyue International (Hong Kong) LimitedDirector of the wholly owned export subsidiary, in an executive capacity · 2021–present
Formation
Bachelor of Engineering, Electrical EngineeringHuaixi Institute of Technology · 1997
Master of Engineering, Power Systems and AutomationJianhe University of Science and Technology · 2000
Executive MBA (part-time)Lingpu School of Management · 2017
When a generating company in our own group asked Qianyue for a discount, Lin put an independent benchmark in front of the directors we had not nominated and let them decide. I argued for the discount at the time. I now describe that meeting to other companies in our portfolio when they ask how a state shareholder ought to be treated.
He JingruFictional director nominated by Mingquan Energy Investment Group to the board of Qianyue Energy Storage Co., Ltd.The full record ↗
Contact
I intend to stay at Qianyue. With our board's agreement, I would consider one independent directorship at a listed company outside batteries, storage and our shareholders' businesses, joining a strategy or audit committee first and giving about thirty days a year. I also speak occasionally to grid, finance and manufacturing audiences.