Executive Summary
- GlobalData says the global battery storage market will grow sixfold at a CAGR of 42% between 2025 and 2030, with China and US dominance driven by supportive regulation, massive utility-scale procurement and aggressive clean energy mandates
- The research firm noted the rise of battery projects being built with a four-hour duration, in California and for tenders in Australia; similar ‘duration-lengthening trends’ are taking place in the UK
- Energy shifting has ‘become the fulcrum of the battery storage value proposition, recasting batteries from ancillary grid support tools into system-critical infrastructure’, said power analyst Rehaan Shiledar
Research firm GlobalData has forecast the global battery storage market to see a sixfold rise at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 42% from 2025 to 2030 – with China and the US remaining the dominant players.
The findings, which appear in GlobalData’s new report titled ‘Strategic Intelligence: Batteries in Power (2026)’, reveal that, at the end of 2025, China and the US combined have almost three quarters (74.6%) of BESS capacity. This dominance is driven by supportive regulatory frameworks, massive utility-scale procurement, alongside aggressive clean energy mandates.
One of the key elements noted by GlobalData – particularly with one eye on the UK market – is that of long duration energy storage (LDES). Earlier this month, as Electrical Insight reported, Eurelectric posited that innovative LDES technologies will become an ‘increasingly valuable flexibility option’ across several European markets, with the wind-rich UK set to benefit to the tune of storage technologies with durations exceeding 24 hours potentially by 2040.
For now, however, in the US, under California Public Utilities Commission programs, many battery projects built have a four-hour duration. It is a similar story for certain tenders in Australia, while GlobalData notes ‘similar duration-lengthening trends’ in the UK as projects shift from frequency-response towards energy and capacity revenues. “The global power sector is increasingly standardising on four-hour battery energy storage systems rather than two-hour designs,” explained Rehaan Shiledar, power analyst at GlobalData.
“Higher shares of solar and wind create longer daily mismatches between generation and demand,” Shiledar added. “It makes four-hour ‘shifting’, especially moving midday solar into the evening peak, more valuable to reduce curtailment and provide reliable capacity during steep net load ramps.
“This is reflected in utility and regulator procurements, which often treat four hours as a minimum for capacity credit and resource adequacy.”
Another model where others can learn from the US, GlobalData noted, is in co-located hybrid plants, particularly solar-plus-storage. Not only does the battery increase revenue by capturing curtailed solar and shifting delivery into higher-price hours, but co-location also enables export-limited designs where PV is oversized, so excess energy is stored and later discharged without breaching an interconnection limit. California and Texas are cited as leaders here.
“Energy shifting has become the fulcrum of the battery storage value proposition, recasting batteries from ancillary grid support tools into system-critical infrastructure,” said Shiledar. “By absorbing surplus renewable output and redeploying it into periods of higher demand and pricing, batteries bolster reliability, curtailment, relieve network congestion, and reduce reliance on peaking generation.
“As costs continue to decline and projects more effectively monetize stacked revenue streams, supported by government mandates, energy shifting will remain the principal catalyst for battery storage deployment and a cornerstone of high-renewables power systems,” added Shiledar.
