China will be able to install increasing volumes of wind and solar power over the coming decade and vastly reduce its curtailment problems by utilizing the batteries from the world’s largest fully electric vehicle (EV) fleet — which will reach almost 11 million EVs by 2027, according to analyst Fitch Solutions.

“China's surging EV segment will mean that the country will be able to scale up V2G [vehicle-to-grid] solutions before any other market, and at a scale unrivalled over the coming decade,” the company says in an analyst note.

V2G technology means that EV batteries plugged into the grid can store renewable energy at times when supply outstrips demand and send it back to the grid when demand is greater than supply.

The Fitch note explains that China will have access to 1,138GWh of EV battery storage by 2027 (compared to 295GWh in the US and 459GWh in Western Europe), helping China to reduce curtailment from its wind and solar plants in regions such as Xinjiang, Gansu and Inner Mongolia, where renewables supply is greater than local demand and exports to other provinces have been capped by grid constraints.

“We believe the EV fleet can become a substantial storage tool for the [Chinese] government to integrate rapidly growing supplies of wind and solar power to the grid, without jeopardising its stability,” the note says, adding that China has the fastest growing renewables market in the world.

However, it continues: "Coal generation overcapacity will mean that this V2G deployment will be of less acute importance to energy security in China than for example Western Europe, where baseload capacity is going offline at a rapid pace.”

But any increase in air-pollution reduction or climate change efforts means that EV storage and V2G will play a greater role in the Chinese electricity sector, it adds.