I. Background and Development Trend of the Energy Storage Industry

In recent years, the green new energy industry, represented by wind power and photovoltaic power, has developed rapidly, exerting a profound impact on the global energy industry as well as the political and economic landscape. However, energy sources such as wind and photovoltaic power have obvious periodicity or instability. The industry consensus is that to make full use of wind and photovoltaic power generation systems, they must be developed in combination with energy storage technologies. Narrowly defined energy storage technologies mainly include pumped storage, electrochemical energy storage, compressed air energy storage, flywheel energy storage, gravity energy storage, molten salt heat storage, etc.; broadly defined energy storage technologies include hydrogen energy, green fuels (ammonia, alcohol, etc.), and so on. Wind and photovoltaic supporting energy storage technologies are aimed at mitigating the volatility, randomness, and intermittency of wind and photovoltaic power generation, providing stable, durable, and adjustable electricity for the power system.

China’s energy storage industry is undergoing a critical transformation from large-scale expansion to high-quality development. According to data from the China Energy Storage Alliance (CNESA), by the end of 2024, the cumulative installed capacity of power energy storage in China reached 137.9GW, a year-on-year increase of 59.9%. Among them, the installed capacity of new energy storage exceeded pumped storage for the first time, reaching 78.3GW/184.2GWh, with the power/energy scale increasing by 126.5%/147.5% year-on-year respectively. This historic breakthrough marks that the energy storage industry has become a core support for building a new-type power system. As the “neural network” for the intelligent and unmanned operation of energy storage systems, the reliability and security of wireless communication technologies directly determine the operational efficiency, safety, stability, and economic benefits of energy storage projects.

At the policy level, the Action Plan for High-Quality Development of New Energy Storage Manufacturing Industry clearly states that it is necessary to “accelerate the in-depth application of digital and intelligent technologies such as advanced computing, industrial internet, and internet of things in the energy storage field”. Breaking through key areas such as “energy storage safety technologies and energy storage data management platforms” and promoting the integrated application of “digital twin + energy storage” are major trends in the development of the energy storage industry. Driven by both the “dual carbon” goals and energy transition, multiple energy storage technology routes such as pumped storage, green hydrogen, ammonia, and methanol are developing in parallel, which puts forward differentiated, scenario-based, and customized technical requirements for wireless communication networks.

II. Pain Points of Wireless Communication in Energy Storage Scenarios

2.1 Pumped Storage Power Stations: Challenges of Full-Domain Coverage in Complex Terrain

As the “giant power bank” of power systems, pumped storage power stations are usually located in mountainous canyon areas, featuring three key characteristics: complex geographical environment, scattered structures, and strong electromagnetic interference. Take a certain pumped storage power station as an example: the project requires network coverage for a ground area of several square kilometers and communication coverage for nearly 20 kilometers of underground tunnels (including 19 tunnels such as main/auxiliary powerhouse tunnels and tail gate tunnels). Relying entirely on 4G/5G public networks or wired networks is inappropriate, as it faces three major technical challenges:

• Severe signal shielding: Underground cavern groups are made of reinforced concrete, which attenuates wireless signals by 80-90%. The transmission distance of conventional wireless devices is reduced to only tens of meters.
• High costs: Using 4G/5G public networks or relying entirely on optical cables for networking incurs extremely high construction costs. In particular, 4G/5G public network technologies impose long-term burdens on power station operations due to costs such as data packages and dedicated line leases.
• Poor network availability: Many relevant areas lack economic viability for 4G/5G public network coverage, leading to minimal investment from operators and widespread signal blind zones. Even wired optical cable networks often suffer damage, failing to guarantee reliability.
• Insufficient mobility: Both the movement of heavy machinery during construction and personnel monitoring/inspection in later stages require mobile networking. The inability to quickly deploy and adapt mobile networks on demand fails to meet operational and inspection needs in such environments.

2.2 Hydrogen-Ammonia-Methanol Energy Storage: Safety Communication Requirements in Explosion-Proof Environments

Inner Mongolia’s Implementation Rules for Wind-Solar Ammonia-Methanol Projects clearly require that wind-solar hydrogen-ammonia-methanol integrated projects be equipped with energy storage devices accounting for 15% of the new energy scale (for 4 hours). As an important long-duration energy storage technology route, green hydrogen-ammonia and methanol storage operates in environments with high explosion-proof ratings, strong electromagnetic interference, and high humidity, imposing special requirements on communication systems:

• Explosion-proof certification requirements: Areas around electrolyzers and hydrogen storage tanks are classified as Class I hazardous zones. Wireless devices must comply with ATEX/IECEx explosion-proof standards; civilian-grade wireless devices cannot meet these requirements.
• Anti-interference capability: Large-scale electrolyzers, power transmission equipment, and other production facilities generate strong electromagnetic radiation during operation, causing continuous interference to many wireless frequency bands. Wireless technologies with poor anti-interference capabilities cannot meet the needs of such environments.

2.3 Lithium Battery Energy Storage: Efficient Management Challenges for Large-Scale Clusters

Lithium battery energy storage systems are developing toward GWh-level scales. For example, an independent energy storage project with a single-unit scale of 1.2 GWh requires unified management and control of numerous containerized energy storage systems. However, traditional wired-based BMS (Battery Management Systems) face three major challenges:

• High wiring complexity: A 1 GWh energy storage system contains approximately 2,000 battery clusters, requiring tens of thousands of meters of communication cables, accounting for 15-20% of the total system cost. Due to this complexity, star topology wiring is usually adopted, making the overall network vulnerable. Wireless private networks can serve as a necessary supplement and hot backup for wired systems to improve overall reliability.
• Difficult maintenance: Containerized energy storage cabins have limited space, and troubleshooting cable faults takes 4-8 hours per cabin.
• Limited scalability: Adding new battery clusters requires rewiring, failing to meet the flexible expansion needs of “plug-and-play.”
• Remote networking difficulties: Energy storage stations are usually built near wind and solar farms, and some locations lack dedicated line coverage even from operators, making it challenging to connect to backend smart management centers.

In short, all the above energy storage scenarios require real-time networking to ensure the reliable, safe, and stable operation of energy storage systems. So, what technologies, products, and solutions can meet the diverse and complex networking needs of these energy storage scenarios?

III. Wireless Private Network Solutions for Energy Storage

In response to the diverse communication requirements of the energy storage industry, this solution integrates five categories of technologies, including BreezeAir industrial WiFi, iMAX wireless metropolitan area network (MAN) private network, low-frequency Phantom MESH system, and 5G virtual private network, to customize the most suitable wireless communication network solutions for users. Its key technical advantages are as follows:

3.1 Energy Storage Private Network Solution: Multi-Band Fusion and Flexible Networking Architecture

1) Pumped Storage Power Station: Adopting a three-layer architecture of “wireless MAN private network + industrial WiFi + leaky cable”

A pumped storage power station is both a power generator and a large electricity consumer. Different from ordinary reservoirs, it usually has upper and lower reservoirs, which makes it more necessary to design and plan a wireless private network system in a unified manner to realize the networking of all information nodes and monitoring points in the entire area.

The iMAX 5G wireless MAN private network is deployed in the ground area, supporting a system peak capacity of 1Gbps or even 10Gbps, and a single base station with a coverage radius of 10-15 kilometers can meet the requirements.

iMAX dual-band WiFi gateways or BreezeAir industrial WiFi systems are deployed in the office area to achieve regional WiFi coverage and solve the problem of office network access for smart terminals (such as laptops and mobile phones).

For underground tunnels, medium and high-frequency iMAX wireless private networks or low-frequency MESH mobile communication systems are used in conjunction with leaky cable technology. The cables are laid along the top of the tunnels to achieve 99.9% coverage, meeting the network access needs of fixed monitoring points, portable monitoring points, robots, or inspection personnel systems.

Schematic diagram of the wireless private network topology for a typical pumped storage power station:

Guoxin Longxin has numerous cases of wireless private networks for reservoirs, hydropower stations, etc., which can be referred to in Case Sharing of Wireless Private Networks for Water Conservancy Intelligent Projects.

2) Hydrogen-ammonia energy storage: Adopting the “explosion-proof private network” and anti-interference technical solutions

Deploy the customized iMAX-8000Exd industrial-grade explosion-proof wireless system launched by Guoxin Longxin for explosion-proof scenarios to meet the networking needs of fixed points and mobile terminals in such scenarios.

Technically, multi-link data mirroring or leaky wave cable technology can be used to avoid industrial electromagnetic interference, and the communication reliability can be improved to a maximum of 99.9%.

Schematic diagram of the wireless private network topology in a typical hydrogen-ammonia energy storage site:

3) Lithium battery energy storage: Adopting “industrial WiFi + wireless virtual private network” technology to ensure the stable and reliable operation of the Battery Management System (BMS) for lithium batteries

Guoxin Longxin’s BreezeAir industrial WiFi system, based on the IEEE 802.11ac\ax protocols and supporting technologies such as MU-MIMO, allows a single AP to connect 128+ terminals. It can fully meet the networking needs of on-site container-type energy storage cabins, enabling synchronous collection of parameters such as battery voltage and temperature.

Integrated with wired networks and featuring hot backup redundancy, it realizes a three-level architecture design (slave control – cluster control – domain control) and supports hierarchical management of 100,000+ battery cells.

For remote network interconnection across different locations, the 4G\5G cloud exchange SD-CX virtual private network solution can be adopted. For details, please refer to the article 5G Virtual Private Network Solves Networking Challenges for Government and Enterprise Clients.

Schematic diagram of the wireless private network topology for typical lithium battery energy storage:

2. Technical Advantages of Guoxin Longxin Wireless Private Network

Our designed wireless solutions fully consider network availability and reliability. Taking the iMAX wireless metropolitan area network system as an example, its technical advantages are as follows:

• Three “High” Features: Supports high bandwidth (1.2Gbps air interface rate per base station), high capacity (over 500 terminals connected per base station), and high stability (99.99% availability), meeting the needs of synchronous backhaul and centralized monitoring of 1,000 channels of high-definition videos.
• Three “Low” Features: Low latency (wireless transmission latency ≤ 3ms), low failure rate (Mean Time Between Failures (MTBF) of over 200,000 hours), and low cost (compared with the operator’s 5G private network networking method in energy storage scenarios, the cost is only 1/n, and it is a one-time investment with no subsequent traffic fees or management fees).
• High Reliability Mechanisms: Based on OFDM/TDMA dynamic modulation technology, supplemented by high-reliability technologies such as RSTP, multi-link data mirroring, and VRRP virtual hot backup routing protocol, coupled with adaptive adjustment capabilities to ensure link smoothness in harsh weather conditions such as rain, fog, sand, and snow, the network stability and reliability can be easily improved to over 90%.
• Security Protection System: Adopts proprietary technologies, supports wireless grouping, MAC address blacklist/whitelist, and link encryption to prevent illegal device access; uses the AES algorithm for full dynamic encryption of data frames to ensure the security of data transmitted over the network; through network technologies such as VLAN, VPN, routing, and software firewall, the network is divided into different parts (e.g., production control network, video surveillance network, office management network, etc.) and logical isolation is achieved.

The greatest advantage of Guoxin Longxin’s wireless private network solution is its ability to ensure network reliability, security, and stability in harsh environments. For details, please refer to the article Why is a GL Wireless Private Network Essential for AI Intelligent Unmanned Projects?

IV. Summary

The wireless private network solution for the energy storage industry has solved the communication and networking challenges in diverse energy storage scenarios such as pumped storage, hydrogen-ammonia-methanol, and lithium batteries through “scenario-specific technical adaptation + highly reliable network architecture + intelligent application empowerment”. The successful applications in numerous similar scenarios have fully demonstrated its technical feasibility and economic rationality. With the in-depth implementation of policies like the Action Plan for High-Quality Development of New Energy Storage Manufacturing, wireless communication technology will become a core support for the “safe, efficient, and intelligent” operation of energy storage systems, helping China move from a major energy storage country to a strong energy storage power.

This solution covers limited application scenarios. In fact, more scenarios (such as photovoltaic power stations, wind farms, unmanned aerial vehicles, or robots) also rely on Guoxin Longxin’s wireless private network system, which can be referred to in documents like Networking Solutions for Distributed Photovoltaic Systems and Wireless Private Network Solutions for Wind Farms.

Guoxin Longxin offers a variety of wireless technologies and can customize highly reliable networking solutions for users in the energy storage industry based on their specific needs. The Guoxin Longxin wireless private network networking solution not only addresses the wireless networking challenges in energy storage scenarios but also creates value beyond technical breakthroughs—it builds a smart manufacturing foundation with full device interconnection, full data integration, and full system interoperability, providing strong support for the digitalization of the entire energy storage chain. For specific needs, please feel free to contact us!