On April 28, 2025, a large-scale power outage in Europe affected multiple countries, and the power grid struggled to recover. Meanwhile, in the Atacama Desert of Chile, Trina Storage's grid-forming energy storage system is providing stable support for the power grid in the world's driest region; at the Daban City Wind Farm in Xinjiang, XJ Electric's grid-forming energy storage system successfully connected to the grid, effectively smoothing out wind power fluctuations.

These scenes, thousands of miles apart, collectively reveal the same truth: as the penetration rate of new energy continues to rise, traditional power grids are shifting from "strong grids" to "weak grids," and grid-forming energy storage is becoming the "grid stabilizer" of the new energy era.

As the proportion of new energy installations continues to rise, the power system is gradually exhibiting the characteristics of "dual high" — high proportion of renewable energy and high proportion of power electronic devices. Issues such as low inertia, low damping, and weak voltage support in the power grid are becoming increasingly prominent.

"Without grid-forming energy storage, renewable energy cannot truly become the main energy source." This has become a consensus among global power experts.

In traditional power systems, stable synchronous power sources such as thermal power, hydropower, and nuclear power constitute a stable AC synchronous grid. They act as the "ballast" for the safety of the power system, providing inertia support as well as voltage and frequency regulation for the grid.

When new energy large-scale replaces traditional synchronous units, the power grid loses its natural "stabilizer." Both wind power and photovoltaics can be transformed and equipped with grid-forming inverters to provide virtual inertia and damping for the system, but the fluctuating characteristics of renewable energy make it unable to provide continuous and stable support for the system.

The essential difference between grid-following energy storage and grid-forming energy storage lies in its transformation from "follower of the power grid" to "builder of the power grid."

The grid-connected energy storage system is essentially a current source and cannot provide voltage and frequency support on its own; it must rely on the voltage and frequency of the grid to operate. Therefore, in island and off-grid modes, the grid-connected energy storage system will not be able to operate normally.

The grid-forming energy storage system is essentially a voltage source that can autonomously set voltage parameters, output stable voltage and frequency, enhance the voltage and frequency support capability of inverters, and improve the stability of the power system. The grid-forming energy storage system shapes the energy storage inverter into a voltage source external characteristic through a power synchronization control mechanism, allowing it to independently construct the amplitude and phase of the AC side voltage without relying on an external AC system, providing strong voltage support for the power system.

Virtual inertia support - The grid-forming energy storage system controls the release of energy from the DC side of the energy storage, which is equivalent to the mechanical energy or damping energy of synchronous machine inertia, thereby providing inertia response and oscillation suppression.

Autonomous Voltage and Frequency Construction - Capable of independently establishing voltage and frequency without external grid support, achieving functions such as black start, virtual inertia support, damping oscillation suppression, and RoCoF active response testing.

Stable operation under extreme conditions — In the event of a power grid fault or extreme conditions, grid-forming energy storage can output current exceeding the rated value for a short time (such as operating continuously at 130% IN for 15 seconds), thereby providing key services such as fault ride-through, voltage support, or frequency regulation.

In October 2025, Trina Storage partnered with Atlas Renewable Energy to jointly develop a 233MW/1003MWh grid-forming energy storage project in Chile. The project utilizes advanced grid-forming control strategies, enabling the energy storage system to possess voltage source characteristics.

The project aims to provide clean energy for the Chilean mining industry while enhancing the resilience of the national power grid. In the context of the accelerated integration of a high proportion of renewable energy in the Latin American region, this system can significantly enhance the grid's disturbance resistance, suppress wideband oscillations, and maintain stable operation of critical loads during grid failures or power outages.

On October 14, 2025, the 6MW/12MWh grid-connected energy storage station supporting the 60MW wind power generation project of Longyuan 104 Regiment in Xinjiang successfully delivered electricity.

The project is located in the Daban City Wind Power Plant area in Urumqi, Xinjiang, and adopts a "wind turbine + energy storage" collaborative operation mode to smooth out the fluctuations of wind power generation through the energy storage system. After the project is connected to the grid, it can deliver 180 million kilowatt-hours of clean electricity to the grid each year, reducing carbon dioxide emissions by 143,000 tons annually, effectively enhancing the peak shaving capability of the grid and improving the stability of grid operation.

In Ukraine, the Chint Power 2.4MW/10MWh string-type grid-connected energy storage system has successfully been connected to the grid, supporting an 18MW photovoltaic power station, achieving integrated and coordinated operation of solar energy and storage.

The network construction characteristics of this system can provide triple stability for the power grid: intelligently responding to wide phase angle jumps in the power grid; real-time perception of changes in grid impedance and strength, dynamically adjusting reactive power output, and responding to voltage fluctuations within 20ms; constructing virtual inertia and intelligently matching the intensity of grid disturbances.

The "Key Technologies and Applications of the Full Network Condition Wind-Solar Storage Construction Network System" by Sungrow Power Supply has been certified by the expert evaluation committee organized by the China Electrotechnical Society. This construction network type energy storage system can achieve microsecond-level voltage construction, millisecond-level rapid response, and GW-level black start capability under multi-machine coordinated control, among other features.

Singularity Energy's grid energy storage can initiate inertia response within 30ms during fluctuations in grid frequency through virtual inertia technology, preventing the power station from being forcibly disconnected.

For most cases where the short-circuit ratio of new energy stations in the power grid is insufficient, preliminary calculations indicate that configuring a grid-type energy storage system with a short-term overload capacity of 1.5 times for 10 seconds at 15% can basically ensure the normal operation of new energy stations.

By configuring a certain proportion of grid energy storage systems with stronger overload capacity (3 times 10s overload capacity), it can play a role similar to that of a phase-shifting device, increasing the penetration rate of renewable energy by 15-20%.

The grid energy storage market is entering a period of rapid growth. Due to the rigid demand in regions where the penetration rate of renewable energy exceeds 35%, the global newly installed capacity of grid energy storage is expected to exceed 8GW for the first time in 2024 (accounting for 15% of the total newly installed capacity of new energy storage).

It is predicted that by 2030, the global grid-connected energy storage market size will grow to 72.5GW (with a penetration rate rising to 55%). As the world's largest energy storage market, China's grid-connected energy storage installations are expected to increase to 30GW, with its share in new energy storage rising to 40%.

On a technical level, grid energy storage is gradually achieving the evolution from device revolution to system intelligence.

The silicon carbide revolution will bring about industrial upgrades, and after adopting silicon carbide converters, the frequency response time is shortened to 8ms.

The AI control system will realize a "digital twin power grid," improving the utilization rate of energy storage assets by predicting the risk of power grid instability (according to calculations by the UK's National Grid, this will increase by 45%).

Modular design will make grid energy storage a standard feature of the new power system, achieving "plug and play."

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