The facility will test grid integration, safety, reliability, combustion and EMC performance for storage systems.
CATL has officially opened its Xiamen Energy Storage Validation Research Institute, or ESVL, a large-scale testing and validation platform for battery energy storage systems.
The facility, located in Xiamen, China, covers 10 hectares and represents an investment of about CNY 3 billion ($440 million). CATL described ESVL as an open testing infrastructure for the global energy storage industry, designed to support full-system and station-level validation before project deployment.
The launch comes as large-scale storage projects face growing pressure to prove safety, grid compatibility and long-term reliability under real operating conditions. CATL said validation in the sector has often remained focused on components or limited scenarios, while energy storage systems are increasingly being deployed as grid infrastructure assets.
ESVL is built around five core laboratories. Its station-level grid integration laboratory includes a 35 kV/100 MVA grid simulator and a real-time simulator. CATL said the platform can test more than 10 large-scale energy storage containers at the same time, simulate 1,000-node grid topologies, and cover a frequency range from 15 Hz to 60 Hz. The lab is intended to verify grid-forming capability and multi-unit coordination under complex grid conditions.
