California's battery-storage capacity rose from 500 megawatts in 2018 to nearly 16,000 megawatts in 2025. Nearly a quarter of America's total battery capacity is in California alone, according to BloombergNEF. At their daily peak, around 8pm, batteries provide as much as 30% of the state's electricity. They charge in the afternoon when solar power is cheap and discharge in the evenings when demand rises.
In 2013 the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) ordered the state's three big investor-owned utilities to procure 1,325MW of energy storage by 2020 to help meet renewable targets and stabilise the grid. The goal was easily met.
Mark Jacobson, an engineering professor at Stanford University, found that most days in 2025 contained periods when solar, hydropower and wind, helped by batteries, met 100% of California's demand—even though just 54% of the state's electricity generation comes from renewables. Most lithium-ion batteries are designed to provide four hours of power, so they do not yet replace baseload generation from gas, nuclear or geothermal.
A fire at a battery facility in Moss Landing, on California's coast, spooked communities. One Monterey County supervisor called it "a Three Mile Island event". The CPUC set new safety standards in response.
In 2024 Texas surpassed California to become the fastest-growing battery-storage market. Developers profited by buying cheap solar power and selling it at a higher cost later in the day—energy arbitrage, rather than regulatory mandate.
Donald Trump's tariffs on China, where the battery supply chain is concentrated, and the gutting of the Inflation Reduction Act's clean-energy tax credits threaten to slow the battery boom.
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