WASHINGTON — As energy demand surges and American voters grow louder about rising power bills, energy storage is becoming an indispensable solution to deliver affordable, reliable power to families and businesses across the country.
The inaugural Energy Storage Market Outlook (ESMO) from SEIA and Benchmark Mineral Intelligence reveals just how widespread battery energy storage has become within our country’s energy infrastructure. Here are five key data points that show how storage is strengthening grid reliability and lowering costs for Americans:
1. Home battery capacity grew over 50% in 2025.
Residential energy storage is a critical tool for homeowners looking to lower their utility bills and boost their homes’ resilience during extreme weather. In 2025, U.S. residential battery capacity grew by 51% and, by 2030, the market is expected to grow by 120%.
Together with distributed solar, fleets of home battery systems can contribute to virtual power plants—an innovative way for grid operators to efficiently allocate available power, which helps meet peak demand and lower bills for all ratepayers.
2. Commercial & Industrial battery installments soar, responding to demand from AI and data centers
America is in a head-to-head race with China to develop cutting-edge artificial intelligence, and tech leaders are clear about the primary bottleneck to U.S. ambitions: power. At the same time, ratepayers are asking a fair question: who pays when data center demand surges?
The market is responding. Commercial and industrial storage capacity jumped 42% in 2025. Battery storage is becoming a critical ally for big tech, delivering the flexibility and instant load balancing that energy-hungry data centers require. As gas turbine shortages delay new natural gas buildout, many data centers are pairing storage with solar to secure reliable power on timelines that match the speed of innovation.
3. In the Utility-Scale Sector, 20 GWh of new storage is directly paired with solar.
Unlike other energy technologies, solar has no fuel costs, and once installed, projects do not rely on commodity markets to generate electricity. While storage can be paired with any energy technology, it complements solar perfectly by soaking up energy when it’s cheap and abundant during the daytime, and then dispatching it when the sun goes down and demand peaks. This solar + storage synergy helps grid operators meet demand without relying on expensive peaker plants, which further drive up electricity rates.
4. Two-thirds of all new storage capacity in 2025 was built in states won by President Trump
Despite the partisan rhetoric, red states are installing energy storage at a record clip. In fact, two-thirds of all new storage capacity last year was built in states that voted for President Trump in 2024. Two recent polls conducted by prominent conservative pollsters found that Americans in red states—and specifically Americans who voted for President Trump—support building more solar energy to lower their bills, strengthen energy security, and boost domestic manufacturing.
In 2025, the vast majority of new solar capacity came online in states that voted for President Trump the year before, and energy storage is seeing a similar trend.
5. 2025 was the largest year for energy storage growth in American history, but it won’t be for long.
The U.S. added 57 gigawatt hours (GWh) of energy storage capacity in 2025, enough to simultaneously power 5.1 million homes for a year. And the industry isn’t slowing down. The report forecasts that the U.S. will eclipse this growth in 2026 by adding an additional 70 GWh of capacity, and the country’ could install over 600 GWh by 2030.
Learn more about America’s booming energy storage market.
Tagged with energy storage, SEIA