The e-mobility investment surge directly follows from the expansion of final consumption. Global sales of all types of EVs – battery powered vehicles, plug-in hybrids and fuel cell vehicles – reached 13 mln units in 2023, making a growth rate of 29.8%, TrendForce reports. Tesla remains the largest manufacturer of battery electric vehicles (BEV), with a 19.9% share in 2023 global sales (net of plug-in hybrids), followed in the ranking by three Chinese manufacturers – BYD (17.1%), GAC Aion (5.2%) and SAIC-GM-Wuling (4.9%). The German Volkswagen comes last in the top five (with 4.6%), being the BEV leader in Europe.
China plays a crucial role in renewable energy development. According to S&P Global Platts early estimates, in 2023 China accounted for 60% (300 out of 500 GW) of global wind, solar and hydropower capacity commissioning. The country’s dominance in the solar power market is most pronounced: by the end of 2023 China’s share in global installed capacity of large, grid-connected solar power plants reached 50%; in the off-grid residential generator segment the share was 59% and in industry and services, 23%.
Moreover, Chinese companies have gained dominating positions in the value-added chain: S&P Global Platts reports that, based on the first three quarters of 2023, seven out of the world’s top ten polysilicon producers were domiciled in China. Furthermore, Chinese companies held all of the top ten positions as silicon wafers and cells manufacturers, and nine out of ten in the modules segment.
The RES and EV investment boom is opening up new opportunities for manufacturers of Li-ion, vanadium and zinc-bromine batteries. It is for a reason that power storage systems ranked fourth in US power capacity commissioning since the outbreak of COVID-19 pandemic. According to the Energy Information Administration (EIA), power storage capacity in the US was increased by 15.5 GW from January 2020 through January 2024; in the same period, gas-burning CHP capacity grew by 25.2 GW, wind by 43.9 GW, and solar panel by 56.2 GW. This year, US power storage systems will only be surpassed by solar generators in terms of grid connection (14.3 GW vs 36.4 GW, according to EIA projections), in particular given the increasing urgency of securing power supply during calm and cloudy weather.
