The United States has expanded its utility-scale battery storage capacity at an average annual rate of 70 percent over the past three years, and developers plan to add another 14 gigawatts before December 31, according to data published by the U.S. Energy Information Administration on August 7, 2026.
Three years of compounding growth
US utility-scale battery storage capacity increased significantly over the last three years, sustaining an annual average growth rate of 70 percent.
By the end of 2025, the US power system had operational battery storage capacity of 43.6 gigawatts.
During the first six months of 2026, operators added another 8.3 GW, bringing the nameplate total to nearly 52 GW, based on EIA’s latest Preliminary Monthly Electric Generator Inventory.
That mid-year figure had already been noted across the industry, but the 70 percent average annual growth rate, sustained across three consecutive years, underscores how rapidly the storage market has shifted from a niche grid resource to a mainstream infrastructure asset.
The H2 2026 pipeline and what comes after
Operators report plans to bring an additional 54 GW of battery storage capacity online over the next two and a half years, with 14 GW of that total targeted for the second half of 2026 alone.
Beyond this year, operators currently plan to add 26 GW in 2027 and 14 GW in 2028.
If those plans hold, operational US battery storage capacity would climb past 105 GW by the end of 2028.
The EIA earlier projected a record 86 GW of total utility-scale generating capacity would be added to the US grid in 2026, with battery storage accounting for 28 percent of that total. That would surpass the 53 GW added in 2025, which itself marked the largest single-year increase since 2002.
Battery storage accounts for 28 percent of the 2026 total, or roughly 24.3 GW.
Chemistry and co-location driving the mix
Lithium iron phosphate batteries now account for around 90 percent of deployments globally; while less energy-dense than rival chemistries, LFP batteries are typically cheaper and better suited to more frequent cycling, a trend reflected across the US market’s own procurement patterns.
Solar photovoltaic plants host the largest battery storage capacity units, a pairing that has accelerated as developers co-locate storage with solar generation to capture daytime output and shift it into evening peak hours when wholesale prices are highest.
The Inflation Reduction Act authorized investment tax credits that can offset 30 percent or more of deployment costs when it was enacted in 2022. The subsequent One Big Beautiful Bill Act makes clear that the accelerated phase-out of the investment tax credit does not apply to energy storage technology, with the phase-out of the Section 48E ITC for energy storage facilities beginning in 2034.
Grid operators managing the surge
The speed of storage additions is putting new pressure on interconnection queues. Grid operators are simultaneously managing a surge of interconnection requests from large industrial and data center loads, a pressure point that regulators are actively addressing.
The scale of battery deployments now means storage assets are large enough to move wholesale price spreads in some markets, changing the economics of the very arbitrage strategies that originally justified their construction.
Developers and grid planners tracking how grid batteries delivered electricity in the first half of 2026 are watching whether the H2 2026 pipeline can be completed on schedule, given continuing equipment supply pressures and interconnection backlogs.
The EIA’s September 2026 Short-Term Energy Outlook, available at eia.gov/outlooks/steo/, includes updated projections for storage capacity additions alongside its broader electricity and fuel forecasts for the remainder of the year.
