China’s Largest Single-Scale 500kV Energy Storage Collector Station Goes Live in Baotou
According to Xinhua News Agency, a 500kV collector station supporting the 1.5GW independent energy storage complex in Weijun, Baotou, constructed by China Energy Engineering Corporation, has entered full operational service recently.
The facility sits in Mingshinao Township, Tumote Right Banner, Baotou City, Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region. It holds the status of the country’s highest voltage grade energy storage collector station built to date, alongside the biggest single matching energy storage capacity nationwide. Two 750MVA main transformers form the core power conversion hardware, paired with one 500kV outgoing circuit and five 220kV outgoing circuits on site.
The station gathers power output from five separate 220kV energy storage plants, with a total integrated storage capacity reaching 1,500 megawatts and an energy volume of 9,000 megawatt-hours.
When operating at peak output, the installation can dispatch a maximum of 9 million kilowatt-hours of clean power in a single cycle. Annual adjustable transmission volume stands at 2.7 billion kilowatt-hours once fully operational. The new infrastructure addresses persistent bottlenecks restricting the absorption of new energy resources across northern mountainous zones of Baotou. It raises the capacity of West Inner Mongolia Power Grid to integrate wind and solar generation, expanding the usable scope of zero-carbon electricity supply across local industrial and residential load centres.
Grid operators will coordinate charging and discharging cycles of the linked energy storage facilities in line with real-time renewable power generation curves. The high-voltage collector framework removes transmission constraints that previously limited the delivery of stored green power to load centres, forming a complete industrial chain for large-scale electrochemical energy storage from power capture to grid consumption. Developers across the domestic new energy sector will track operational data from the site to inform the design of subsequent large-capacity energy storage hub projects nationwide.
