The US added more battery storage capacity in the second quarter of this year than in any quarter ever. In fact, the 20.2 gigawatt-hours of batteries installed during those three months represents one tenth of the nation’s entire grid storage capacity.
These second-quarter installations can provide as much as 6.7 gigawatts of power into the grid, almost as much as seven big nuclear reactors and took a tiny fraction of the more than a decade that would be needed to build that many reactors. However, it is true that nuclear plants can run around the clock while batteries must refill and recharge.
The wind and solar industries are facing headwinds and an uncertain future as the current administration attempts to thwart them in multiple ways, but meanwhile, it actually encourages the battery industry.
Batteries are extremely valuable in places where the grid is stretched thin, can be built quickly, and can be located closer to places of high energy consumption, such as data centers. This makes them attractive in places like California, Texas, the Southeast, the mid-Atlantic, and the Northeast.
The tremendous growth in battery storage is the result of years of development. The largest factor is that the price of the underlying lithium-ion cells has fallen precipitously. These plummeting costs and increasing familiarity with the technology has led developers to build bigger and bigger installations in more parts of the country.
The outlook for continued growth in the battery industry is so strong that analysts upped their prediction for cumulative installs through 2030 by 11.5% over their previous report, which was issued just three months ago.
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The US built more grid batteries last quarter than ever before
