Globally, Mega-Batteries Are Now Unlocking Mega-Energy
- Editor OGN Daily
- 35 minutes ago
- 2 min read
The pace of installation is accelerating around the world. That's good news because they are the key to unlocking the clean energy revolution.
California is ground zero. Since 2020, the state has tripled grid batteries to 13GW, with 8.6 GW more due by 2027; this spring and summer, batteries supplied over a quarter of evening peaks - helping to remove the need for fossil fuels to step in to alleviate peak demands. The sun provides most of California’s electricity during the day. But it is a different story at night. Batteries provide the answer.
Across the United States, 50 percent more utility scale batteries were added over the last year than the year before despite Trump. Analysts keep forecasting a slowdown; builders keep proving them wrong.
As analyst Michael Thomas puts it: "Forecasters keep assuming the growth will stop. And they continue to be wrong. Even more so than in the past, there seems to be a disconnect between what the models say should happen and what the folks building this stuff think will happen. A similar dynamic led to some famously wrong forecasts about solar and wind's growth over the last decade. I wouldn't be surprised if we saw something similar happen with battery storage."
The good news is that the mega-battery boom is global: The Financial Times reports that in 2022 there was only a single gigawatt-scale facility (defined as having a capacity of at least 1GWh, able to supply roughly 3 million UK households for an hour) in operation worldwide. Today there are 42 such sites, and five times as many set to come online in the next couple of years. The result? Excess midday solar becomes clean, usable electricity after dark, displacing fossil gas and stabilising grids.