CATL Secures 24 GWh Order in Australia, Delivers First GWh-Scale 8-Hour Energy Storage System

CATL (300750.SZ / 03750.HK) recently delivered its first 5.64 MWh EnerQB long-duration energy storage system to Quinbrook Infrastructure Partners, a global energy infrastructure investment firm. The equipment is destined for the Stanwell power plant in central Queensland, Australia. This marks the first deployment of the company’s long-duration energy storage systems with durations exceeding eight hours in a gigawatt-hour (GWh)-scale scenario, a milestone widely regarded by industry observers as the pivotal transition of lithium-battery long-duration storage from pilot demonstrations to large-scale commercial application.

The EnerQB system is developed based on CATL’s Tianheng long-duration energy storage platform and is specifically designed for Australia’s 3 GW / 24 GWh series of long-duration storage projects. The two parties have previously signed a cooperation agreement to secure a pipeline of long-duration storage projects in Australia with a total scale of 3 GW / 24 GWh, with the EnerQB system to be delivered in phases across this series of projects. Based on the total capacity of 24 GWh, the fully charged system could store approximately 24 million kilowatt-hours of electricity.

The flagship project of this partnership is the Supernode energy storage project, developed by Quinbrook. The project adopts CATL’s energy storage systems across all phases. Phases one and two are already in full commercial operation, while Phase three will utilize the Tianheng energy storage system and jointly develop an eight-hour long-duration storage solution. Upon full completion, the project will become the largest operational battery energy storage facility in Australia’s National Electricity Market.

From a capacity demand perspective, for the same rated power, the energy capacity required for an eight-hour storage system is four times that of a two-hour system and twice that of a four-hour system. For cell manufacturers, this implies a multiplicative increase in demand for cells and systems at equivalent power levels, opening up new market space for the energy storage industry.

A report released in March this year by research and consulting firm Wood Mackenzie indicated that global long-duration energy storage installations exceeded 15 GWh in 2025, representing a 49% year-on-year increase. Based on the firm’s net-zero emissions forecast scenario, the global average storage duration must increase from 2.5 hours to approximately 20 hours. As countries such as Germany, Australia, and Denmark plan to raise the share of variable renewable energy to over 50% by 2030, the broader deployment of long-duration energy storage is critical to ensuring grid reliability.

The report also noted that lithium-ion battery manufacturers have expanded into long-duration energy storage products. Leveraging superior cost competitiveness and a mature supply chain network exceeding 1,000 GWh, they have effectively dominated the 4- to 8-hour energy storage market.

At the delivery ceremony, Quinbrook CEO Brian Restall stated that long-duration energy storage will help reduce system costs and improve the economics of electricity usage, thereby supporting the development of clean energy and the digital industry transformation.

Policy shifts in China are also reshaping the business model for long-duration energy storage. In January 2026, the National Development and Reform Commission and the National Energy Administration jointly issued the “Notice on Improving the Capacity Price Mechanism on the Generation Side,” establishing for the first time at the national level a capacity price mechanism for independent new-type energy storage on the grid side. The capacity price is based on the local coal-fired power capacity price standard, with a conversion ratio calculated according to peak capacity. The conversion ratio is defined as the continuous full-power discharge duration divided by the duration of the longest net load peak in the year, capped at a maximum of 1. This means that for the same power level, the longer the discharge duration, the closer the conversion coefficient approaches 1, resulting in a higher capacity price for power plants.

The “China New-Type Energy Storage Development Report (2026),” previously released by the National Energy Administration of China, shows that as of the end of 2025, the cumulative installed capacity of new-type energy storage nationwide reached 136 million kilowatts / 351 million kilowatt-hours, marking an 84.3% year-on-year increase and accounting for approximately half of the global total. This has surpassed pumped-storage hydro, making it the largest adjustable resource. Among this, the share of energy storage installations with a duration of four hours or more increased by 12.1 percentage points year-on-year, with large-scale wind power bases in northwestern China taking the lead in scaled deployment. The report also points out that long-duration energy storage routes, such as all-vanadium redox flow batteries and compressed air energy storage, face high initial investment thresholds, insufficient willingness from social capital to participate, inadequate supply of targeted support policies, and low system efficiency that drives up charging costs, all of which remain issues to be resolved.

The technological pathways for long-duration energy storage have not converged on a single answer. Directions such as flow batteries, compressed air energy storage, gravity energy storage, molten salt thermal storage, and hydrogen energy storage are each seeking their respective niches, while the energy storage applications of sodium-ion batteries have also accelerated over the past two years. Data from Wood Mackenzie shows that in the total installed capacity of long-duration energy storage in 2025, compressed air energy storage accounted for 45%, thermal energy storage for 33%, and all-vanadium redox flow batteries (VRFB) for 21%.

At the 2026 World Top Scientists Forum held recently, He Mingxing, founder of Zhongke Rongyi, an energy startup established less than a year ago, introduced the company’s all-solid-state iron-air battery pathway. This technology uses metallic iron as the negative electrode active material, an air electrode as the positive electrode, and a solid electrolyte to replace traditional liquid alkaline electrolytes. He Mingxing stated that the company focuses on long-duration energy storage with durations ranging from four to 100 hours, capable of providing long-term energy transfer at wind and solar power plants, peak shaving and valley filling on the grid side, and support for critical facilities such as commercial, industrial, and especially data centers. He revealed that the R&D team completed feasibility verification for a hundred-fold scale-up of battery cells in October 2025, began construction of a pilot line in July 2026, and is currently simultaneously advancing the optimization of large-area battery cells and the development of battery stacks.

From a market perspective, this delivery breaks the inherent perception that long-duration energy storage naturally belongs to non-lithium routes such as compressed air and all-vanadium redox flow, and also signals that the economics of the lithium battery route in eight-hour scenarios are being recalculated. In overseas power markets, particularly in regions with high penetration of renewable energy and scarce grid adjustment resources, the commercial demand for long-duration energy storage has already outpaced policy; in China, in addition to the gradual implementation of capacity pricing mechanisms, the power load driven by the explosive growth of AI data centers is becoming a new demand curve for long-duration energy storage.

For the industrial chain, GWh-scale orders mean that demand is transmitting from cells to system integration, inverters, high-voltage cables, and segments such as slurry preparation and testing equipment. However, long-duration energy storage projects involve large initial capital investments and long operating cycles, and owners are highly sensitive to the levelized cost of electricity over the entire lifecycle. Whether the lithium battery route can continuously reduce costs and fulfill commitments regarding degradation and maintenance over a 25-year cycle remains the key to whether it can retain this round of orders.