(Yicai) March 4 -- China needs to step up policy support for the large-scale development of pumped hydroelectric energy storage projects before 2030, the chairman of solar silicon producer Tongwei Group has suggested on the eve of China’s two key annual policy-setting meetings.

More support is needed especially for small and medium-sized run-of-river projects which are near load centers and take less time to build, Liu Hanyuan, who is also a delegate to the National People's Congress, said yesterday.

These projects should be mostly finished in five to 10 years, together with or a little ahead of power grid upgrades, Liu noted, adding that survey work on pumped hydroelectric storage projects should continue in order to build up important resources.

Pumped storage hydropower projects use electricity to pump water to the upper reservoirs during power load troughs and then release water to the lower reservoirs to generate electricity at peak times. This energy storage method has the most mature technology, is the most cost-effective, and has the most favorable conditions for large-scale development.

As battery prices continue to fall, new types of energy storage such as lithium batteries have rapidly developed and newly installed energy storage capacity has surged. Many new energy storage installations have been built but are still not being used.

Energy storage should become an independent and important part of the smart power grid and new electricity system in the future, Liu said. More efforts must be made to develop new energy storage, guide and encourage market players to enter the energy storage business, and use market-oriented mechanisms to solve energy storage problems, Liu noted.

Vehicle batteries are also considered to have great potential as energy storage terminals, he pointed out.

Liu proposed hastening the study and formulation of policies to support electric vehicles as a part of the energy storage grid, accelerating the research and development of vehicle-to-grid linkage technologies to make the coordinated operation of EVs and the power grid more reliable and cost-effective, and guiding car owners to participate in charging and discharging to foster a market-oriented use of EVs in the energy storage grid.

Chengdu-based Tongwei is a leading Chinese silicon producer focusing on agriculture and new energy. It has more than 300 branches and subsidiaries with nearly 60,000 employees around the world and was the first Fortune 500 company in the global solar industry, according to its website.

Editor: Martin Kadiev