Gavekal Technologies: New Energy

China’s undisputed leadership in batteries is the result of chemistry, notably its pioneering of the lithium-iron-phosphate cell. This "Goldilocks" battery will be around for a long time, but Chinese companies are also investing heavily in potential successor technologies—notably sodium-ion. If LFP ever does give way to another technology, odds are the producers will still be Chinese.

In the first issue of our new biweekly New Energy Insight, Damien Ma takes a close look at where the world’s biggest electricity system is headed. China’s grid is easily the best and most technically advanced in the world, but it is still plagued with problems: most important, that vast new quantities of wind and solar generation are not reliably connected.