One set of numbers has been making the rounds in the battery industry this month. According to contract-tracking data cited by Chinese industry media, energy-storage system orders signed by Chinese companies in Q3 2026 reached roughly 74 GWh, and about 67.8 GWh of that, a striking 93%, came from overseas buyers. Europe accounted for around 31.2 GWh and the Middle East for about 21.3 GWh.
Even allowing for the usual gap between signed contracts and delivered revenue, the direction is unmistakable: Chinese storage companies are no longer just selling batteries abroad. They are winning the world's largest energy projects. Here is what is happening, and what it means if you buy, install, or build energy-storage systems.
The mega-deals behind the headline
Orders of 1 GWh or more reportedly totaled about 62.2 GWh in the quarter, roughly 84% of everything signed. Four names sit at the center of it:
- BYD signed an 11.275 GWh agreement with Masdar, the UAE clean-energy developer. At this scale, buyers are purchasing far more than cells: system safety, delivery capacity, and long-term warranty support are all part of the deal.
- Sungrow won a 7.5 GWh order in the UAE, described as the world's largest application of 684 Ah stacked-design cells, with grid connection expected in 2027. As a system integrator, its edge is power electronics: batteries, PCS, thermal management, and energy management working as one system.
- Gotion High-Tech signed a 6 GWh project in Saudi Arabia, with systems customized to run from -30°C to 55°C and protected against heat, wind, and sand.
- CATL signed a 5 GWh sodium-ion storage cooperation agreement with Dutch company Alfen. Deliveries are not expected until 2027, but it is one of the clearest signals yet that sodium-ion is moving toward scale.
Two things are worth keeping in mind when reading numbers like these. First, BYD and Sungrow mostly play as system integrators and project deliverers, while Gotion and CATL lean toward cell supply; they are winning different layers of the same projects. Second, signed capacity, actual shipments, and profit contribution are three very different things.
Certification is the first gate, not an afterthought
The same reporting highlights compliance as the make-or-break factor for going global, and the details matter to anyone importing batteries into these regions.
In the EU, the new Battery Regulation is now in its enforcement phase. Carbon footprint declarations took effect on 18 February 2026 for industrial batteries above 2 kWh, requiring third-party-verified, full-lifecycle carbon data. The digital battery passport becomes mandatory on 18 February 2027, disclosing 71 core data points, and since August 2026 EU customs has been running mandatory spot checks on carbon footprint declarations and battery passport data for imported batteries.
The most common trap, according to the report: showing up at customs with a domestic Chinese carbon footprint report. Grid emission factors and system boundaries often do not match EU rules, so the document simply is not accepted. Green electricity certificates must map to specific production batches, and traceability documentation for lithium, nickel, cobalt, and natural graphite is the hardest to assemble. Building a compliant carbon accounting system typically takes three to six months, which means it has to start at the bidding stage, not after the contract is signed.
The Middle East has its own gate. Taking Saudi Arabia as the example: SASO/SABER dual certification is a hard prerequisite for customs clearance, storage batteries must pass SASO IEC 62619, non-Saudi companies must appoint a local importer or authorized representative, products must run reliably at 55°C, and the protection rating must be at least IP65.
Europe and the Middle East are two different games
In Europe, everything comes back to project economics. In the UK, for example, storage project returns are quoted at roughly 8–9%, but the revenue mix has transformed: frequency regulation's share of revenue reportedly fell from 85% in 2020 to 21% in 2025, with spot-market trading and capacity markets taking over. The competitive edge is shifting from hardware cost toward trading and operational capability. Customers buy storage to make money in power markets, and if the revenue model does not work, no specification sheet will save the sale.
The Middle East plays by different rules: enormous projects, extreme environments, and long operating periods, many under BOO (build-own-operate) structures. Saudi Arabia's SPPC has already launched a second tender round covering 12,000 MWh across six projects of 500 MW / 2,000 MWh each. Success there depends on understanding four distinct parties in every deal: the project owner, the EPC contractor, the system integrator, and the actual purchaser.
Neither market forgives sloppy cash-flow planning. Grid-scale battery storage outside China and the US is quoted at a total installed cost of around US$125 per kWh, and overseas projects typically pay in milestones: 10–30% up front, 20–40% on shipment, 20–40% on acceptance, plus a 5–10% retention held for one to two years. Add currency controls in some emerging markets, and the report's advice is blunt: know your cash flow and consider hedging your exchange rate.
Localization is the long game
Shipping containers is the easy part. Storage cell qualification, from sampling to volume supply, can take 12–18 months per customer, so building capacity abroad without locked-in demand risks a long, expensive ramp. Leading players are pairing regional headquarters with on-site project teams, and whole Chinese supply chains are now going abroad together: in South Africa's 153 MW / 612 MWh Red Sands-style project cited in the report, one company supplied the cells (CALB), another the fully liquid-cooled storage system plus 15 years of operation (Sungrow), and a third the EPC work.
What this means for smaller buyers, installers, and DIY builders
You may never bid on a gigawatt-hour tender, but this shift still reaches your next purchase:
- Tier-1 Chinese cells are becoming the global default. The same CATL, EVE, BYD, and CALB cells anchoring utility-scale mega-projects also power the residential and DIY market. Choosing a system built on genuine Grade A cells from these makers puts you on the same supply curve the professionals use.
- Certification discipline is trickling down. Whatever you buy, ask the questions the big buyers ask: Is the battery tested to IEC 62619? What is the IP rating? What is the real operating temperature range?
- Europe's trading-driven economics are arriving at the household level. As wholesale trading and dynamic tariffs spread, well-sized home storage keeps getting more interesting, which is exactly what we explored in our European DIY storage market analysis.
At Deligreen, this is the supply chain we build on: Grade A CATL 314Ah LiFePO4 cells shipped from our EU warehouse, complete packs like the 16 kWh 51.2V battery built on CALB 314Ah cells, and DIY kits with smart JK BMS for builders who want tier-1 cells in their own projects.
The bottom line
On the surface, this is an order grab. Underneath, it is a reshaping of the global supply chain for large energy projects, and the report's closing judgment is worth quoting in spirit: the four most urgent tasks for companies going global are compliance first, locked-in customer demand, clear-eyed cost and payment math, and local teams built early. For the rest of us watching the industry, the metric that matters is not who signs the most gigawatt-hours, but who turns those signings into stable revenue and profit.
