Illustration: Rose Wong for Bloomberg
Cheap Batteries Are Taking Over the World’s Power Grids
Falling costs, rising electricity demand and the Iran War are nurturing a boom in energy storage.
Around the world, a wave of mega installations of batteries are lining up to be connected to the grid this year — from solar hubs in Texas to grasslands in Inner Mongolia and the site of a former coal plant north of Sydney.
Falling costs and soaring energy demand from data centers had already set the stage for rapid growth. The war in the Middle East has helped accelerate the trend by lifting demand for alternatives to expensive fossil fuels, setting 2026 up to be the year batteries become influential in the global energy system. BloombergNEF analysts had already expected installations to jump by about a third this year, led by expansion in Europe, the Middle East, Africa and Latin America. That momentum could build further if fuel disruptions persist.