World’s largest liquid-air storage facility comes online in China

China has opened a 60 MW/600 MWh liquid-air energy storage (LAES) facility in Qinghai province. Built by state-owned China Green Development Investment Group with China's Academy of Sciences, the plant compresses and cools ambient air to -194 °C for storage, then releases it to generate electricity. It began grid operation on October 30 and can discharge continuously for 10 hours, designed to absorb 600 MWh of surplus renewable output daily and supply an estimated 180 GWh annually. The developer describes it as the world's largest grid-connected LAES project by capacity.

Where this fits

Long-duration energy storage (LDES) is essential to a renewables-heavy grid: it bridges the gap between weather-dependent supply and demand over days or seasons. This facility represents real progress on a genuine problem. But it also illustrates the materials and sovereignty risk in Australia's energy transition. LAES is less mature than electrochemical batteries and has a higher up-front materials intensity. The technology is now proven at scale in China, and China owns the supply chain: compressors, cryogenic tanks, control systems, all Chinese-designed and built.

What it means

Australia's renewable transition assumes we will solve the LDES problem cheaply and at speed. That problem is real, and LAES is one honest path to solving it. But it is being solved by China's state sector, not by Western firms. When Australia needs LDES at scale, whether LAES, gravity, hydrogen, or compressed-air storage, the equipment, engineering and intellectual property will come from Beijing or be licensed by Beijing. A firm, domestically fuelled alternative like nuclear would reduce that dependence. For now, Australia is watching China master the technology that will underpin a renewables grid, and has no domestic option but to import it.