HiTHIUM is a manufacturer focused on energy storage batteries and systems. On October 15, 2026, HiTHIUM held a 200 GWh shipment milestone ceremony at its Chongqing manufacturing base, announcing that its cumulative shipments had surpassed 200 GWh — up from 100 GWh in August 2025, a doubling in just over a year.
1. What does 200 GWh actually mean?
One clarification matters first: 200 GWh is cumulative shipments, not production capacity. HiTHIUM began shipping at the end of 2021 and has since passed both the 100 GWh and 200 GWh marks. Over the same period, its global ranking in storage battery shipments rose from fifth in 2023 to third in 2024 and then to the global top two in 2025 and the first half of 2026. Third-party data points the same way: InfoLink Consulting put global energy storage cell shipments at about 467.84 GWh in the first half of 2026, up about 94.76% year over year, with HiTHIUM ranked second; the firm forecast about 1,026 GWh for the full year 2026. In other words, the 200 GWh milestone arrived while the whole industry was scaling fast — it is not an isolated event.
2. Why are storage cell shipments growing so fast?
The direct driver is the storage market itself expanding: grid-side, commercial and industrial, and residential storage are all growing, and large-capacity, long-duration projects are becoming more common. HiTHIUM's product path follows that direction: it moved into long-duration storage R&D in 2022, launched a 1000Ah-class long-duration storage cell and system in 2023, and rolled out a native 8-hour long-duration storage solution in 2025. On the manufacturing side, it operates bases including Xiamen, Chongqing and Heze in Shandong, with its Chongqing site named the world's first energy storage battery lighthouse factory in January 2026. As cells get bigger and systems run longer, the value of each cell and each system rises with them.
3. What does shipment growth have to do with welding?
Here facts and inference must be kept apart. The fact is: doubling shipments means cell, module and system output scaled up in step. The inference is: as output scales, the number of metal-welding steps — cell tab welding, module busbar connections and similar joints — scales with it, and so do the demands on welding consistency and yield, because a single weak or over-welded joint, multiplied across hundreds or thousands of joints, becomes a system-level reliability risk. Ultrasonic metal welding is a commonly used process for cell tab welding: it produces no sparks, needs no filler material, and suits thin non-ferrous metals such as copper and aluminum. Buyers evaluating such equipment generally look at weld-strength consistency, joint appearance, whether the tab coating is damaged, and whether the machine can keep pace with the production line.
4. What should buyers and industry readers take from this?
For storage supply-chain buyers, shipment rankings and volumes are one reference for judging a supplier's delivery capability, but not the only one — cycle life in the actual application, safety record and after-sales service matter too. For welding equipment suppliers, the opportunity is not any single order from any single company — this article involves no order or tender information — but the industry's overall expansion pace: as long as cell makers are adding capacity, tab welding remains an unavoidable process. The practical advice is to test first: run welding trials with the actual tab materials and stack structure, check pull strength, joint quality and consistency, and only then talk about matching production capacity.
If you are selecting tab welding equipment for a storage cell or module line and are unsure about weld strength, cycle time or trials, feel free to call us. Shanghai Jingjin offers free sample welding tests to help you verify the result.