China Unveils First National Battery Plan for 2026-2030

Seven Chinese government departments have jointly issued the country’s first national-level special plan dedicated to the battery sector, setting out a strategy to move the industry from scale leadership to system-wide innovation leadership during the 15th Five-Year Plan period (2026–2030). The New-Type Battery Industry Development plan, released on September 28, is led by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) alongside the National Development and Reform Commission, the Ministry of Transport, the Ministry of Commerce, the State Administration for Market Regulation, the National Energy Administration, and the National Railway Administration.

According to Xinhua News, “accelerating full-chain innovation and development” ranks first among the plan’s five priority task areas, with a specific focus on enriching high-end battery product supply and strengthening new-type battery product innovation.

From Scale Leadership to System Leadership

The plan arrives against the backdrop of China’s dominant position in global battery manufacturing. In 2025, China’s lithium battery output accounted for more than 80% of the world’s total, with mass-produced single-cell energy density exceeding 300Wh/kg and the highest cycle life of new-type batteries surpassing 12,000 cycles. Industry total output value broke through the trillion-yuan mark, up from just 324 GWh of lithium battery output in 2021.

Yet the plan’s authors warn that this dominance is not guaranteed. Liu Wenqiang, Party Secretary of the China Center for Information Industry Development, said current changes in the internal and external environment are reshaping the global battery industry landscape and posing entirely new challenges, as 42how / EV Observer reported. “Against this backdrop, the Plan takes high-quality industrial development as its theme and deploys 19 key tasks, seeking to drive the industry from scale leadership to system-wide leadership,” Liu said.

Key Targets and Priorities

The plan defines new-type batteries as efficient energy storage and conversion devices built on new mechanisms, materials, structures, and processes, represented by lithium, sodium, and flow batteries. Its headline goals for 2030 include steady growth in industry scale, major progress in new-system battery research, initial large-scale application of all-solid-state batteries, a lithium battery cycle life reaching 15,000 cycles, and a product defect rate at the parts-per-billion (PPB) level for leading firms.

The plan deploys 19 key tasks across five special columns and builds a product supply system led by lithium batteries with sodium and flow batteries developing in coordination. China’s lithium battery output jumped from 324 GWh in 2021 to over 1,800 GWh in 2025, forming significant advantages in scale, cost, and supporting capability.

Expert Reaction

Nan Cewen, an academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and a professor at Tsinghua University, called the plan timely. “As China’s first national-level special plan in the battery field, the Plan’s introduction is timely. The Plan particularly highlights the connection between the innovation chain and the industrial chain, emphasizing common and key technological breakthroughs as the support for industrial innovation,” he said.

Nan added that China now possesses the innovation strength to advance multiple technology routes simultaneously, opening up the collaborative chain from material R&D to equipment manufacturing. “The next-generation technology system and the current mainstream system reaching parallel maturity and mutual complementarity within the same industrial cycle is already possible to achieve,” he said.

Full-Chain Innovation

The plan’s central strategic shift is from expanding capacity and competing on scale to full-chain independent innovation and independently defining technology routes. This spans the entire chain — from basic mechanisms and key materials through manufacturing equipment, product development, system integration, and scenario applications.

On materials, the plan calls for iterating cathodes toward high-nickel ternary, manganese-based, and polyanion chemistries; industrializing silicon-based, hard carbon, and anthracite-based anodes; and targeting sulfide and halide solid electrolytes alongside composite current collectors and high-performance binders. On manufacturing, it promotes high-precision double-sided solvent-free coating, high-speed stacking, roll-to-roll MEA production, and isostatic pressing for solid-state batteries, as well as specialized industrial software to address the industry’s long-standing “heavy hardware, light software” problem.

Digital, Green, and Security Foundations

Beyond innovation, the plan sets out a digital, green, and secure industrial base. It envisions a battery-industry-specific large model and AI R&D platform to accelerate material screening, formulation optimization, and performance simulation, as well as smart factories using machine vision and real-time sensing.

On sustainability, the plan promotes green design, increased use of recycled materials, and the construction of green and zero-carbon factories and parks to align with national dual-carbon goals. On supply-chain security, it calls for increased exploration of lithium, cobalt, and other key minerals, improved salt-lake and lepidolite utilization, and pilot rail transport of lithium batteries.

Standards, Regions, and the Road Ahead

The plan also emphasizes soft power that has lagged behind China’s manufacturing scale. It calls for accelerating standards for solid-state and sodium batteries, cross-industry joint standard-setting, deep participation in international standards, high-value patents, a power-battery digital ID and international battery digital passport, and a carbon-footprint database with international mutual recognition.

Regionally, it aims to consolidate the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei, Yangtze River Delta, and Greater Bay Area clusters while leveraging the Guangdong-Fujian-Zhejiang coastal cluster and central and western resources. On the enterprise side, it seeks to strengthen leading global firms, support mergers and acquisitions, cultivate world-class enterprises, and nurture specialized “little giant” and single-champion firms.

The MIIT’s Electronic Information Department noted that the market has great space and good industrial prospects, but cautioned that China must “balance development and security, avoiding large swings in the industry.”

With the plan now in place, the focus shifts to implementation over the next five years — particularly whether all-solid-state batteries can reach large-scale application by 2030 and whether China can convert manufacturing dominance into rule-setting influence on the global stage.