How to Read China's Energy Storage Safety Standards: the Map (the 2023 SAC–NEA Standard System Guide's Eight Areas, With Safety and Emergency as One), the Only Mandatory Standard Among Those Cited Here (GB 44240-2024 for Storage Lithium Cells and Batteries, in Force Since 1 August 2025; Its Thermal-Runaway Test Described by 何鹏林 of CESI, Quoted in a 2025 Press Report, as 'No Fire, No Explosion' After Heating), the Station-Level Recommended Standards (GB/T 42288-2022 Safety Code and Its Clause 5.6 Fire Requirements; GB/T 51048-2025 Design Standard From 1 April 2026 Replacing GB 51048-2014; GB/T 46261-2025 Fire Monitoring From 1 September 2026; GB/T 42314 and 42312 on Hazard Identification and Emergency Plans; GB/T 36276-2023 Batteries), How Many There Are (More Than 50 National and 50 Industry Standards Issued, 30-Plus in Drafting, per NEA's June 2025 Reply) and How UL 9540A Sits Beside Them

Short answer. China's storage safety standards are a layered set in which the product standard for the batteries is mandatory and the station-level standards cited here are recommended. The map is the 2023 SAC–NEA guide to the new-type storage standard system, which arranges standards in eight areas — basic/general, planning and design, equipment and testing, construction and acceptance, grid connection and operation, inspection and monitoring, operation and maintenance, and safety and emergency — the last covering equipment and facility safety, operating safety, dedicated safety facilities and emergency management across construction, operation, maintenance, overhaul, fire protection and testing. The only mandatory (GB, no 'T') standard among those cited here is GB 44240-2024 电能存储系统用锂蓄电池和电池组 安全要求, under MIIT, published 24 July 2024 and in force since 1 August 2025; a China Energy News report quotes 何鹏林 of the China Electronics Standardization Institute as saying large storage lithium batteries sold in China must meet it and that its thermal-runaway test requires no fire or explosion after heating, where other standards treat heating as a trigger and allow fire. The station-level standards cited here are recommended (GB/T): the GB/T 42288-2022 safety code (in force 1 July 2023), whose clause 5.6 sets the fire-protection requirements, the GB/T 51048-2025 design standard effective 1 April 2026 and replacing GB 51048-2014, the GB/T 46261-2025 fire monitoring and warning requirements effective 1 September 2026, the GB/T 42314-2023 hazard-identification and GB/T 42312-2023 emergency-plan guides (1 October 2023), and GB/T 36276-2023 for the batteries themselves (1 July 2024). The April 2025 five-department notice asks standard-setters to speed up station standards for design, construction, acceptance, grid connection and operation, to link safety-production standards to the mandatory battery standard, and to have fire authorities write fire-management and fire-monitoring standards; NEA's reply to an NPC suggestion dated 25 June 2025 says that more than 50 national and more than 50 industry standards had been issued, with 30-plus in drafting. This guide reads the guide, the records and clause 5.6; it does not read the standards' texts, so what each requires beyond its title is not described.

1. The map: eight areas and the two-tier system

The guide describes a two-tier system of government-issued and market-made (group) standards, calls for active adoption of international standards, and set a 2023 target of revising or drafting 100 or more key standards, with design, safety code, construction and acceptance standards accelerated and pre-research on safety, emergency and fire standards.

CNWattHub reading: the practical consequence of the eight-area map is that "safety" is not one standard but a property of each area — the design standard, the acceptance standard and the fire-monitoring standard each carry safety clauses — so a supplier's "complies with Chinese safety standards" needs to be unpacked by area.

2. The mandatory battery standard: GB 44240-2024

CNWattHub reading: the test content above is reported speech from named interviewees in a state newspaper, not the standard text, and should be used to frame questions to a supplier — which edition of the test report, which laboratory, which cell and pack models — rather than as a statement of the clauses.

3. Station-level recommended standards and their dates

The 2014 design code applied to new, expanded or rebuilt stations of 500 kW and 500 kWh and above and not to mobile stations, and is recorded as repealed from 1 April 2026; the record of the 2025 standard retrieved on 2026-10-24 still carried the status label 未生效 alongside its 2026-04-01 effective date.

What clause 5.6 of the safety code requires

As reproduced on a fire-code reference site, clause 5.6 of GB/T 42288-2022 requires: fire separation per GB 51048; an automatic fire alarm system per GB 50116; combustible-gas, temperature and smoke detectors in battery rooms or containers, with the option of a detector per module; gas-concentration display and alarm outside battery rooms and in the duty room, with manual alarm and emergency start/stop buttons outside; a fire-water system per GB 51048; an automatic extinguishing system in battery rooms whose minimum protection unit for lithium-ion should preferably be the battery module, with remote automatic and manual start, media with good insulation and cooling performance, and the ability both to extinguish and to keep suppressing reignition; and interlocking among fire, HVAC and video/environment monitoring systems.

CNWattHub reading: three words in clause 5.6 decide a design review — 应 (shall) for detectors, alarm, water and extinguishing systems, 宜 (should preferably) for the module as minimum protection unit, and 可 (may) for per-module detectors. A proposal that protects at container level rather than module level is departing from a 宜, not breaching a 应, and should say so explicitly.

4. What the regulators asked for and how many standards exist

• The April 2025 notice. Market-regulation, energy and related departments are to speed up revision of station standards for design, construction, acceptance, grid connection and operation; energy authorities are to draft safety-production standards such as enterprise safety standardisation and link them to the mandatory battery standard; fire-and-rescue authorities are to draft fire-management and fire-monitoring-and-warning standards.
• NEA's count (reply dated 25 June 2025). More than 50 national standards including the station design standard, more than 50 industry standards, and more than 30 (including a flow-battery test code) in drafting; new-type storage listed as a priority in the energy-industry standard project guide.
• NEA's 2024 tally (July 2025). More than 20 electrochemical storage standards published and implemented in 2024, covering planning and design, grid connection, operation control, maintenance and testing, and post-evaluation.

CNWattHub reading: GB/T 46261-2025 covers the fire-monitoring-and-warning topic that item 三 of the notice assigns to fire-and-rescue authorities, and its record names the National Fire and Rescue Administration as competent department; it was published on 29 August 2025, after the April 2025 notice, but the record does not say it was drafted in response to the notice. Its 1 September 2026 effective date means a project commissioning in 2026 will straddle it; the design standard's 1 April 2026 date has the same effect for projects designed in 2025 and built in 2026.

5. The UL comparison

UL Solutions describes UL 9540A as the American and Canadian national standard for assessing fire propagation from thermal-runaway events in battery ESS, a methodology for testing safety-related behaviour when an ESS design or installation exceeds the limits set by NFPA 855, NFPA 1, the IFC or the IRC, and the only consensus standard explicitly cited in NFPA 855 for large-scale fire testing.

CNWattHub reading: the structural difference is that the US route makes a propagation test (UL 9540A) the gateway to installation relief under a code (NFPA 855), whereas the Chinese route puts a mandatory cell-and-battery standard (GB 44240) under the products and recommended station standards over the installation. A supplier offering both a UL 9540A report and a GB 44240 report is answering two different questions — propagation behaviour of an installed configuration, and product safety of the cells and batteries — and neither substitutes for the other.

6. A reading sequence

1. Area. Place each cited standard in the eight-area map.
2. Mandatory versus recommended. GB 44240 is the mandatory product standard; the station codes are GB/T.
3. Dates. Which editions were in force at design, at commissioning and today (GB/T 51048-2025 from 2026-04-01; GB/T 46261-2025 from 2026-09-01).
4. Fire clause wording. 应/宜/可 in clause 5.6 and where the design departs from a 宜.
5. Hazards and emergency. Hazard identification and emergency-plan guides cited in the safety documentation.
6. Evidence. Test reports to GB 44240 and GB/T 36276 for the cells and batteries, with laboratory and model numbers.
7. Cross-border. UL 9540A and NFPA 855 where a US or Canadian installation is involved.

Scope limits

This guide reads the 2023 standard-system guide, the records of GB 44240-2024, GB/T 42288-2022, GB/T 51048-2025, GB 51048-2014, GB/T 46261-2025, GB/T 42314-2023, GB/T 42312-2023 and GB/T 36276-2023 (texts not read), clause 5.6 of GB/T 42288-2022 as reproduced on a reference site, the April 2025 five-department notice, NEA's July 2025 press conference and its NPC reply dated 25 June 2025, a China Energy News report of August 2025 for statements attributed to named interviewees, and UL Solutions' UL 9540A page. It quotes no standard text beyond clause 5.6, no certification rule, no enforcement case and no accident report. Not legal, engineering or fire-safety advice.