The energy storage industry set aggressive goals for 2025, and has already crushed them

Nearly a decade ago, when the energy storage market was in its infancy, one industry organization set a visionary goal: By the end of 2025, the United States would deploy 35 gigawatts of grid-connected batteries.

So how has the storage industry fared? In the third quarter, 4.7 gigawatts of batteries were installed. In short, more than 40 gigawatts have been deployed, and the year is not over yet, Canary Media reports. In eight years, energy storage has gone from a small player to one of the largest new energy sources on the American grid.

Moreover, this represents nearly half of the total new renewable energy deployed on the grid from July to September, and this year, renewables were the primary source of all new capacity, according to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.

Much of the new storage capacity has been deployed in Arizona, California and Texas, states where the grid has come under pressure in recent years. Experts say lessons learned there could help other regions deploy battery storage on their grids, including the Midwest and East Coast, which are struggling with the construction of new data centers.

Startups have taken note.

Redwood Materials, co-founded by Tesla alumnus JB Straubel, in June added a new business line focused on reusing used electric vehicle batteries for grid-scale storage. The company noticed two overlapping trends: The batteries that were arriving at its recycling facilities still had plenty of life left in them, and at the same time, the battery storage industry was growing by leaps and bounds.

By 2028, Redwood plans to deploy 20 gigawatt-hours of battery storage. Investors have expressed their approval, investing another $350 million in the company to advance the new business line.

Another startup, Base Power, has taken a slightly different tack, renting batteries to homeowners and assembling them to act as one large virtual power plant. The Austin-based startup raised $1 billion in October to help build a battery factory and support its expansion outside of Texas. The company has deployed more than 100 megawatt-hours of batteries in Texas.

While lithium-ion batteries have dominated new facilities, other startups are pursuing other technologies that could significantly reduce storage costs.

Sizable Energy is working on a new way to store energy in flexible tanks floating in the open ocean. Fourth Power uses carbon blocks to store heat at very high temperatures, and is looking to deploy them in 2028 at a lower cost than lithium-ion batteries or natural gas power plants. XL Batteries is deploying its flow battery technology at petrochemical storage sites, allowing it to store hundreds of megawatt-hours using existing infrastructure. Cache Energy has developed inexpensive calcium hydroxide pellets that can store energy for months with minimal losses.

Overall, this indicates an industry in the midst of massive expansion. With the combination of solar and wind, which remain the cheapest forms of new electricity, energy storage has the potential to reconnect global energy markets, and the American grid with them.