Through combing the industrial policies and scientific research support for energy storage technology in developed countries such as the United States, Japan and South Korea in recent years, it is found that most of these countries choose 2-3 energy storage technologies as the main research and development objects.

US: The first country to promote energy storage demonstration projects

Since 2009, the first energy storage project has been built in the United States since 2009, and the energy storage technology in the United States has begun to lead. The US government has positioned energy storage technology as a strategic technology to support the development of new energy sources. In recent years, it has formulated a series of plans, investment and subsidy policies and tax incentives to support the development of the energy storage industry.

The Us support policies related to energy storage are mainly divided into the following categories:

For industrial development planning, such as 2009~2011 released a series of renewable and green energy storage technology plan, through these bills, the American energy storage industry development has made some planning and deployment, mainly for the American energy storage system investment tax relief, to the grid scale energy storage investment provides tax incentives.

2.Financial support for demonstration projects funded 16 demonstration projects with $185 million at the end of 2009, while aging about $587 million investment in the market in these energy storage demonstration projects.

3.Price support policies for energy storage in the electricity market: such as "pay by effect" implementation.

4.Energy storage system application subsidy policy.

5.Provisions on energy storage system allocation targets.

In 2009, the US government allocated $2.2 billion to support battery technology research and development, including large-scale energy storage. In the "Strategic Plan" released by the US Department of Energy in 2011, the U. S. Department of Energy has explicitly elevated energy storage to a strategic level, and promoted energy storage development and application through direct government investment, tax adjustments, and supporting technological innovation. In June 2013, California included energy storage in the transmission and distribution procurement and planning system, promoting the transmission, distribution and other links of energy storage, to solve the grid management problems. Since the second half of 2013, the United States and Canada have begun testing the peaking energy storage market on a small scale.

Germany: Direct subsidies to support photovoltaic energy storage

Germany has made great efforts to promote the energy storage industry. It plans to invest 50 million euros in 2013 and 2014 to directly subsidize the users of new energy storage systems, effectively promoting the development of the household energy storage market. So far, 30 megawatts of projects have been subsidized. Germany is expected to have 2 gigawatt hours of energy storage capacity in the next five years because of the energy storage subsidy program.

In May 2013, Germany introduced a new photovoltaic energy storage policy of 60 kW subsidies up to 600 euro / k W for new photovoltaic power installations and 660 euro per kilowatt for photovoltaic facilities less than 30kW; in November 2014, Germany FIT subsidy rate for rooftop facilities between 12.62-10.98 euro cents / kWh.

Affordable Internet access, coupled with subsidies for rooftop distributed photovoltaic and energy storage facilities, residents to install independent photovoltaic power generation system on their own roof, can meet their own electricity needs, the use cost is also lower than online power purchase, home distributed photovoltaic has been economic, with the conditions for large-scale promotion.

Grid peak regulation is another driving force for energy storage demand. Germany uses a high proportion of renewable energy, hitting a new record high of 74% in the most recent hours on July 25th. Such a high proportion will lead to large temporal fluctuations in the power supply. Therefore, there is a real need for energy storage development

However, Germany's main way to solve the power supply imbalance is to deliver electricity from neighboring countries, such as France and Denmark. France has a higher proportion of nuclear power, while Denmark has more abundant wind power resources. The generation efficiency of nuclear power is very small by natural conditions, and the peak time of wind power generation is at night, which forms a pattern of complementary power to a certain extent. Germany transmits electricity to its neighboring countries in full daylight during the day, and from France and Denmark at night until the early morning.

Japan: Energy storage increases to make up for the nuclear power gap

Since the Fukushima accident, Japan has started to support the energy storage industry, and has carried out many projects to reduce energy storage costs. Including wind power projects, on-board batteries, fixed energy storage batteries, battery material technology evaluation, etc., involving energy storage technologies include lithium batteries, nickel metal hydride batteries and vanadium batteries. 

In March 2014, Japan's Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry launched a new round of subsidy plan for lithium-ion battery energy storage systems, allocating a total of 10 billion yen to give buyers two-thirds of the purchase price of the system. The government hopes the plan will use energy storage to increase the proportion of renewable energy used, effectively manage peak loads, improve power stability, while helping the government measure the impact of mass production on battery costs.

South Korea: The largest market for fuel cell power generation

South Korea is currently the largest market for fuel cell power generation, and molten carbonate fuel cell (MCFC) is widely used in large power generation equipment in South Korea and other countries in the United States, with a scale of 60MW. South Korea's strict renewable energy quota strategy (RPS) forces 350MW of new and renewable energy sources per year by 2016, and 700MW a year by 2022. Against this backdrop, South Korea's continued breakthroughs in fuel cells have led to a gradual boom in investment in solid fuel cells, with dozens of megawatt fuel cell projects launched in 2013 alone.2013 In August 2000, the South Korean government announced that it would release plans to encourage the use of energy storage devices to prevent power shortages, although no official document was released as of press time, but energy storage opportunities in the South Korean power market have emerged.

According to South Korea industry trade resources has published "active energy new industry and the development of core technology rules", points out that the south Korean government in 2015 will invest 1 trillion 830 billion won in electric vehicles and energy storage system (ESS) and other new energy industries, is expected to create in 2017 local scale 4 trillion 600 billion won scale of new energy industry market, and 14000 jobs.

Southeast Asia: Large population without electricity is in urgent need of energy storage development

Southeast Asian countries, Malaysia, Indonesia and India, Southeast Asia are emerging markets for microgrids. There are many islands in these areas, with a large proportion of the population without electricity, and some islands cover as much as 70 percent of the population without electricity. Given the geographical factors and economic conditions of the islands, microgrids are the only solution. At present, the governments of these countries have released targets and plans to solve the population without electricity, Malaysia, Mersing Islands have successfully introduced micro grid systems to solve the local power supply problem, and more islands' demand for micro grid technology, including energy storage, is increasing