Grid Storage Entered the 100 GW Era in 2025

Global battery storage additions reached 112 GW in 2025 — 307 GWh of batteries, up 48% on 2024 — on BloombergNEF’s count. The industry now describes this as entering the “100 GW era”.

Those two numbers describe the same fleet of batteries and they are not alternatives. It is worth being precise about which is which, because the distinction is the single most common error in energy reporting, and this article previously made it.

Beyond Lithium-Ion

While lithium iron phosphate (LFP) batteries continue to dominate utility-scale installations, alternative chemistries are gaining ground for long-duration storage. Form Energy's iron-air batteries can store energy for up to 100 hours at a fraction of lithium-ion costs, making multi-day storage economically viable for the first time. The company's first commercial facility in West Virginia is expected to begin operations in late 2026.

China Dominates Deployment

China installed 61.1 GW / 173.1 GWh in 2025, a 54% increase on the previous year and 54% of all new additions worldwide. That is more than the rest of the world combined, and it is driven by mandates requiring new solar and wind farms to include storage. CATL and BYD continue to lead global manufacturing, with utility-scale LFP cell costs now below $100 per kWh.

US Grid Modernization

The United States added 18 GW / 54.6 GWh in 2025, up 46% and 16% of global additions, led by California, Texas and Arizona. The Inflation Reduction Act’s investment tax credit for standalone storage is a large part of why. Interconnection remains the binding constraint rather than manufacturing or cost — projects wait in utility queues far longer than they take to build.

Outlook: Storage as Grid Infrastructure

Batteries are moving from a supplementary asset to core grid infrastructure, and the forecast reflects it. BloombergNEF projects cumulative capacity reaching roughly 2,867 GW / 10,514 GWh by the end of 2036, around ten times the 2025 level. Annual additions alone are forecast at 459 GWh in 2026 — which is why any projection quoting a few hundred GWh as a 2030 global total is out by orders of magnitude.

The economics matter more than the chemistry here. Wider intraday power price spreads let storage earn on arbitrage, which is what makes it competitive with gas peaking plant on cost rather than only on emissions.