How to Read China's Energy Storage Safety Regulations: Filing With Named Responsibility Under the 2025 Five-Department Notice, the 2022 Owner Duties and 'No Sick Connection' Rule, Risk Monitoring of Generation- and Grid-Side Stations From 2025, the 2026 Major-Hazard Criteria and Penalties, the Revised Accident Regulation, and the GB 44240 and GB/T Standards

Short answer. The texts read for this guide regulate electrochemical storage safety through a stack of departmental notices, rules and standards. The 2021 project rules put stations under local filing and require certified equipment and safety assessment of second-life batteries. The 2022 NEA notice makes the owner responsible, requires inspection by qualified bodies, fire acceptance, and type, whole-station and grid-connection tests before connection, with grid companies refusing 'sick' connections. The 2023 notice requires power companies to monitor the safety state of batteries, BMS, EMS, PCS and fire systems and to bring all new and existing generation-side and grid-side stations they invest in or operate into monitoring from 2025. The April 2025 five-department notice ties every filing to a named safety-responsibility and supervision assignment and adds a feasibility-stage safety analysis, a completion check and a post-evaluation. From 1 July 2026 the NDRC's major-hazard rule makes a 220 kV-plus storage station without the required ride-through, voltage-control, reactive-support or frequency capabilities, or without completed grid tests, a 'major hazard' that must be reported within 3 working days and, where safety cannot be assured, must stop construction, production or operation of the affected equipment, with fines. The accident regulation revised in August 2026 extends safety-management and dispatch duties to 'other grid-connected entities' and requires filed, drilled emergency plans from power companies. Underneath sit the mandatory battery standard GB 44240-2024, the recommended station standards GB/T 42288, 42314 and 36547 and the recommended storage-battery standard GB/T 36276. This guide reads them in that order.

1. Filing and equipment (2021)

The Interim Rules for New-Type Storage Project Management (国能发科技规〔2021〕47号) place projects under filing by local energy authorities, with copies to NEA dispatched offices. Main equipment must pass testing and certification by qualified bodies, and grid-facing equipment must meet grid-safety technical requirements; safety, fire and environmental procedures must be followed. New second-life power-battery (梯次利用) projects must build consistency-management and traceability systems and obtain safety-assessment reports from qualified bodies, and both new and existing such projects must build online monitoring platforms. When a project reaches its design life or its safety status fails technical requirements, the project unit must organise evaluation and rectification; if the project still fails after rectification it must be retired, with a report to the filing authority.

2. Owner duties and pre-connection tests (2022)

The NEA General Office's notice of 26 April 2022 (国能综通安全〔2022〕37号) makes the owner (project legal person) the responsible party for stations under filing management that connect to the public grid at 10 kV or above. Equipment must pass inspection by bodies with storage-specific testing qualifications, and delivery sampling of batteries and BMS must be commissioned from such bodies. Before commissioning the station needs completion acceptance and fire acceptance; before grid-connection acceptance it must complete type tests, whole-station commissioning tests and grid-connection tests, and grid companies are to refuse 'sick' connections (带病并网) by stations that fail grid technical standards. Stations and batteries are retired according to design life, safety status and standards.

3. Monitoring generation- and grid-side stations (2023)

The notice of 7 November 2023 (国能综通安全〔2023〕131号) requires power companies to monitor the operating safety state of battery packs, BMS, EMS, PCS, fire systems, cybersecurity and operating environment at the generation-side and grid-side stations they invest in or operate, to complete monitoring capability by 31 December 2024, and to bring all new and existing stations into monitoring from 2025. The China Electricity Council collects industry monitoring data — including first-level alarms, charge and discharge volumes, charge/discharge hours and outage hours — and reports analyses to the NEA. CNWattHub reading: for a buyer or lender, a station should therefore be able to show its monitoring feed and the alarm and outage history it reports.

4. Filing tied to safety responsibility (2025)

The notice of 11 April 2025 by the NEA, MIIT, Ministry of Emergency Management, SAMR and the fire-rescue bureau (国能综通安全〔2025〕65号) requires all electrochemical storage station projects to be filed, with the filing authority stating the project unit's primary safety responsibility and assigning supervision responsibility in the filing document; already-filed projects are to be supplemented item by item. Project units must produce a written analysis of safety conditions and facilities at feasibility stage, check the safety facilities at completion or after trial operation, and carry out a safety post-evaluation after a period of operation. The notice also calls for a fire-alarm information notification and joint-response mechanism between departments. In its June 2025 reply to an NPC deputy, the NEA described the same notice as urging local governments to build their own supervision systems with safety as a precondition for development.

5. Major hazards and penalties (from July 2026)

The NDRC's Rule on Major Accident-Hazard Criteria and Treatment Supervision (NDRC Order No. 41, published 18 March 2026, in force 1 July 2026) lists, among its grid and equipment criteria, any wind farm, PV plant or electrochemical storage station connected at 220 kV or above that lacks the low-voltage ride-through, high-voltage ride-through, voltage-control, dynamic reactive-support or frequency-adaptability capabilities required by national standards, has not put its active-power or reactive-voltage control systems into operation as required by the dispatcher, or has not completed grid-connection tests per national standards; it also lists failure to prepare an emergency rescue plan or to drill it regularly.

A power company must report a major hazard within 3 working days to the NEA dispatched office and the local electricity authority, and must stop construction, production or operation of the affected equipment where safety cannot be assured before or during remediation. Penalties: from 20,000 to under 50,000 yuan on the principal responsible person for failing to set up or implement the mechanism or to remove hazards promptly (from 50,000 to under 100,000 if not corrected in time); under 100,000 yuan on the company for not establishing the system or not reporting (from 100,000 to under 200,000, plus suspension for rectification, if not corrected); under 50,000 yuan for not taking measures to remove a hazard. The rule states that '以上' and '超过' include the stated number, so '220千伏以上' includes 220 kV.

6. The accident regulation (revised 2026)

The Electricity Safety Accident Emergency Response and Investigation Regulation, first issued as State Council Order No. 599 in 2011 and revised by Order No. 845 of 30 August 2026, grades accidents into particularly major, major, larger and ordinary by an annexed table (not quoted here). It extends duties to 'other entities connected to the grid' alongside power companies and users — obeying unified dispatch, executing standards and dispatch orders — and requires power companies to prepare accident emergency rescue plans, drill them regularly and file them with the NEA dispatched office with a copy to the local emergency-management department. CNWattHub reading: a power company without a prepared and regularly drilled emergency plan is addressed by both texts.

7. Fire prevention: the twenty-five requirements (2023)

Section 2.12 of the NEA's 2023 'Twenty-five Key Requirements for Preventing Power Production Accidents' sets the baseline for generation-side and grid-side electrochemical storage stations: station sites may not adjoin flammable or explosive premises; large and medium stations should use mature, high-safety batteries and be cautious with second-life batteries; lithium-ion battery rooms may not be located in crowded places; the BMS must provide over- and under-voltage, voltage-difference, over-current, over-temperature and temperature-difference protection, with cluster-level isolation preferred; LFP battery rooms need combustible-gas (H2/CO) detection interlocked to room- and cluster-level DC breakers and explosion-proof ventilation; new or expanded large and medium lithium-ion stations need fixed automatic extinguishing systems that put out battery flames without reignition, verified by module-level real-battery fire tests at qualified bodies; and fire facilities need a full test at least once a year, with pre-commissioning emergency plans and drills coordinated with the local fire service.

8. The standards

• GB 44240-2024 电能存储系统用锂蓄电池和电池组 安全要求 is a mandatory national standard (GB, no 'T') under MIIT, published 24 July 2024 and in force from 1 August 2025.
• GB/T 42288-2022 电化学储能电站安全规程 (published 30 December 2022, in force 1 July 2023), GB/T 42314-2023 电化学储能电站危险源辨识技术导则 (published 17 March 2023, in force 1 October 2023) and GB/T 36276-2023 电力储能用锂离子电池 (published 28 December 2023, in force 1 July 2024) are recommended standards administered by the China Electricity Council.
• GB/T 36547-2024 电化学储能电站接入电网技术规定 is a current recommended national standard on connecting electrochemical storage stations to the grid.

In its June 2025 reply the NEA said new-type storage exceeded 82 GW by end-April 2025, that the standards-system guide covers eight areas (basic/general, planning and design, equipment testing, construction and acceptance, grid connection and operation, inspection/maintenance and monitoring, operation and maintenance, safety and emergency), and that more than 50 national standards, including the Design Standard for Electrochemical Storage Stations, and more than 50 industry standards had been issued. The design standard's text, number and dates were not retrieved and are not described here.

Reading table

Checklist

CNWattHub editorial method, not a sourced rule:

1. Obtain the filing document and check that it names the safety responsibility and the supervising authority as required by the 2025 notice; if filed earlier, ask for the supplement.
2. Ask for the feasibility-stage safety analysis, the completion safety-facility check and the post-evaluation.
3. Collect the type-test, whole-station commissioning and grid-connection test reports and the fire-acceptance record; for 220 kV-plus stations, check the five capabilities and the control-system commissioning named in the 2026 rule.
4. Request the monitoring feed and the alarm and outage history reported under the 2023 notice.
5. Confirm the emergency plan is filed with the NEA dispatched office and drilled, and that fire facilities have an annual full test.
6. Check battery certification against GB 44240-2024 (mandatory from August 2025) and station documents against the GB/T 42288/42314/36276/36547 set.

Scope limits

National notices, one NDRC rule, one State Council regulation and standards information pages only. No accident statistic, provincial rule, fire-service regulation or standard text is quoted; the design standard is named only as cited in the NEA reply. Not legal, engineering or investment advice.