Shanghai launches per-kWh incentive fund for advanced grid-scale energy storage

Mechanism

The measure operationalises the 2024-12-27 Shanghai municipal work plan for new-type energy storage (沪府办发〔2024〕28号, "上海市新型储能示范引领创新发展 工作方案（2025—2030年）") by attaching a concrete funding instrument to it. Two reward tracks apply to storage projects connected to the grid by 2025-09-01:

• Degree-based reward (度电奖励): paid on measured discharge volume.

Independent storage stations using advanced technology and demonstrating industry-catalysing effects earn CNY 0.35/kWh; user-side storage meeting technical-advancement, industry-catalysing and land-efficiency criteria earns CNY 0.2/kWh. An additional CNY 0.2/kWh applies to building-integrated storage meeting all three criteria. Annual rewardable output is capped at 600 kWh per kW of installed capacity, paid for three consecutive years.

• Advanced-equipment bonus: a one-time payment equal to 40% of the

investment cost exceeding a conventional lithium-battery baseline, capped at CNY 50 million per project.

Eligibility requires advanced-technology capacity to make up at least 15% of a project's total capacity in 2025, rising 10 percentage points per year thereafter. Reward standards decline 10% annually from 2026 through 2028. The scheme runs for five years from the 2025-06-01 effective date.

Downstream implications

• Reinforces Shanghai's 2025-2030 storage build-out target (800 MW by 2026,

2+ GW by 2030) by directly subsidising the revenue stack of independent storage operators, on top of existing peak/off-peak charge-discharge price spreads.

• Domestic-market subsidy for grid-scale storage deployment; no direct

trade-restrictive or extraterritorial mechanism, so severity is set low (2) — this is a regional demand-side incentive, not an export control or market-access barrier.

• Battery/storage-system suppliers with Shanghai-sited independent storage

projects (CATL, EVE Energy, Sungrow and other grid-storage integrators active in the Shanghai market) are the direct beneficiaries.

Open questions

• Whether Shanghai publishes a "subsidized project directory" (补贴目录) name

list; if disclosed, it would identify specific beneficiary projects/firms.

• Interaction with the CNY 5bn Shenzhen semiconductor/IC fund and other 2025

provincial funds referencing the same "new-type power system" policy family — worth checking for responds_to links once those are filed.