750 Gigawatts Of Energy Storage, And Nowhere To Go

750 Gigawatts Of Energy Storage, And Nowhere To Go — Yet Support CleanTechnica's work through a Substack subscription, on Patreon, or on Stripe. Help us produce all of the high-quality, original content we publish week after week despite the challenges of content-scraping AI, antisocial media, inflation, and other hurdles. By the raw numbers, the US is sitting on 750 gigawatts of energy storage. Don’t get too excited just yet, though. Those systems are still in the planning stages, idling in a years-long queue to obtain a grid connection. Though only a fraction will eventually get built, the huge number of applications is yet another indication that clean energy is still alive and kicking in the US, despite last year’s sharp U-turn in federal energy policy. Here Comes The Energy Storage Boom We’ll get to those 750 gigawatts in a minute, but first let’s look at big energy storage picture. In terms of adding new utility-scale capacity to the nation’s power generation profile, the killer combo of solar and storage has been outpacing every other domestic energy resource by a wide margin. The trend emerged in force over the past few years, contributing to a scenario in which renewables continue to outrun natural gas additions into the coming years, with wind, solar, and storage holding a considerable speed-to-power factor among other advantages. Energy storage is source-agnostic, with some notable exceptions. Still, with wind and solar being the primary beneficiaries, the numbers are stacked on the side of clean power. The market analysis firm Wood Mackenzie ran the numbers earlier this summer in collaboration with the American Clean Power Association, reporting that new storage capacity additions set records across all segments in Q1, arriving at a total of 3.3 gigawatts. “The US storage market will almost quadruple over the next six years, reaching 200 GW/655 GWh of cumulative installed energy storage capacity by 2031,” Wood Mackenzie elaborates, with utility-scale systems taking the lion’s share at 85% of installed storage capacity between 2026 and 2031. Here Comes Another US Battery Manufacturer The new report also takes note of new restrictions on FEOC compliance, meaning new Foreign Entity of Concern regulations established through last year’s “OBBA” tax bill, aimed at dissuading US manufacturers from doing business with China and other designated countries. “Developers with mature project pipelines and available capital rushed to safe harbor projects in H2 2025 and will now work to secure long-term supply agreements with domestic BESS [battery energy storage] manufacturers,” Wood Mackenzie explains. Among those domestic manufacturers is the South Korean energy storage startup DeltaX, which specializes in BESS solutions that support renewable energy projects. Last week, the company selected the Piedmont Regional Industrial Park in Monroe, Georgia as the site of its new, $141 million North American manufacturing headquarters. Georgia’s Republican Governor, Brian P. Kemp, has established a habit of gliding past the White House’s fossil-friendly energy policy to support clean tech investments in his home state, and DeltaX is no exception. In an August 14 press release celebrating the new factory, Kemp drew attention — purposely or not — to DeltaX’s role in the global decarbonization movement. “The company provides integrated energy storage solutions for utility-scale projects, renewable energy integration, AI data centers, commercial and industrial applications, and OEM customers worldwide,” reads the press release, adding that “DeltaX delivers high-performance, safe, and reliable energy storage platforms for the global energy transition.” DeltaX founder and CEO Stephen Kim also chipped in his two cents, with an emphasis on clean power. ”Our Georgia facility will serve as the manufacturing hub for North America, enabling us to provide world-class Battery Energy Storage Systems more efficiently while creating high-quality jobs and supporting America’s rapidly growing demand for reliable and sustainable energy infrastructure,” Kim stated. About Those 750 Gigawatts Of Energy Storage… As for all those energy storage projects queued up for a grid connection, the figure of 750 gigawatts appears in a Bloomberg report, drawing on data collected by the US Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in California. “Nationwide, some 750 gigawatts of energy storage projects — roughly equivalent to the generating capacity of more than 700 nuclear reactors — are in line to get grid connections, according to the lab’s research,” Bloomberg reports, citing a median wait time for grid connections of five years as of 2025. Yes, five years it is. Shortcomings in the nation’s electricity grid have been festering for years, leaving grid operators and other stakeholders scrambling to update aging infrastructure to support new connections. That applies to power plants as well. All together, the Berkeley lab calculates that 2,000 gigawatts in new power plant and energy storage facilities were queued up last year, which is actually an improvement over the peak year of 2,600 gigawatts in 2023. The lab notes that recent regulatory reforms helped to reduce the number, alongside market conditions that motivated applicants to withdraw a total of more than 750 gigawatts. Berkeley Lab further emphasizes that requesting a grid connection is just one step in a long, complicated process in which most applications are withdrawn before they get off the boards. The research team looked at connection applications from 2000 to 2020, and calculated that only 13% of the requested capacity came online by the end of 2025. Another 75% were withdrawn completely. The outcome of the remainder is pending further investigation. “Withdrawal rates are relatively high (>40%) even after signing an interconnection agreement, posing challenges for grid planners and operators,” the lab elaborates. The Reliability Conundrum Berkeley Lab also draws attention to the grid reliability issue. While reliability is often associated with a utility’s ability to keep the lights on during storms and other emergencies, ratepayers can also play an essential role in the reliability equation, particularly in the case of large load customers (spoiler alert: data centers). Data centers are particularly noteworthy because, in contrast to other high-volume electricity users, they are designed to disconnect automatically from the grid when triggered by swings in voltage, leading to a knock-on effect potentially impacting other customers. The electricity sensor and fire safety firm Ting Labs (formerly Whisker Labs) cites one recent example, in which a 3-gigawatt cluster of data centers in Virginia abruptly switched to backup power after a transmission line fault occurred on the local grid. Fast action by multiple operators prevented a widespread grid failure, but Ting notes that its sensors picked up voltage disturbances across a territory covering a population of 238 million people and 100 million homes. “The event is notable less for what went wrong than for its scale and speed, and it validates the need for real-time grid intelligence, close coordination between grid stakeholders and regulatory concerns about data center ride-through requirements to boost grid resilience,” Ting concludes. I’ve reached out to Ting for more details on whether or not existing energy storage capacity played a role in the successful effort to re-balance the grid after a 3-gigawatt load suddenly tripped off, so stay tuned for an update. Photo: Another renewables-friendly battery maker sets up shop in the US as demand for energy storage soars and grid reliability issues rise (cropped, courtesy of DeltaX). Sign up for CleanTechnica's Weekly Substack for Zach and Scott's in-depth analyses and high level summaries, sign up for our daily newsletter, and follow us on Google News! Have a tip for CleanTechnica? Want to advertise? Want to suggest a guest for our CleanTech Talk podcast? Contact us here. Sign up for our daily newsletter for 15 new cleantech stories a day. Or sign up for our weekly one on top stories of the week if daily is too frequent. CleanTechnica uses affiliate links. See our policy here. CleanTechnica's Comment Policy