China’s Battery Dominance Creates Bottleneck for Global Energy Transition

China controls 95% of the market for energy storage batteries, placing it at the centre of a technology increasingly important to the global shift towards renewable power.

Storage batteries help electricity grids integrate solar and wind energy by holding power for use when sunshine or wind is unavailable. Their growing importance makes access to affordable batteries a key part of the energy transition.

China’s industrial strength has helped lower costs, making storage more accessible. But that advantage also leaves the market heavily concentrated in a single country.

For the United States and Europe, the concentration raises concerns that the move towards cleaner electricity could create a new form of dependence on China. The challenge is to secure battery supplies without losing the cost benefits that Chinese manufacturing offers.

Building factories elsewhere may help diversify production, but it is unlikely to be enough on its own to overcome China’s industrial lead. That leaves the global energy transition facing a difficult balance between cheaper storage and more resilient supply.