BEIJING, July 5 Reuters Rows of what look like thin, white shipping containers are lined up on a barren dirt field in China39;s Shandong province.

Filled with batteries, they form a 795 megawatt MW plant that can hold up to 1 million kilowatthours of electricity enough to power 150,000 households for a day, making it China39;s largest such storage facility when it was connected to the grid last Saturday.

Built by Lijin County Jinhui New Energy Co, the project is part of an explosion in development of energy storage in China, which has called for even more investment in the sector to boost renewable electricity and ease grid bottlenecks.

While the stateled drive has provided a welcome spark for homegrown battery giants such as CATL and BYD, some industry insiders and experts say pricing reforms and technology improvements are needed for a storage sector whose rapid growth has been plagued by low utilisation and losses for operators.

Most of the players in this sector are trying to figure out how to make money, said Rystad Energy senior analyst Simeng Deng.

Investment in gridconnected batteries in China surged 364 last year to 75 billion yuan 11 billion, according to Carbon Brief, creating by far the world39;s largest storage fleet at 35.3 GW as of March.

In May, China set a new target of at least 40GW of battery storage installed by the end of 2025, up 33 from the previous goal under a wider plan to reduce carbon emissions.

Storage is critical to help balance…