Electric battery capacity nearly doubles in the US under Trump

The United States installed 20.2 gigawatt-hours (GWh) of battery storage between April and June of this year, a record for a single quarter, and closed the first half of the year with 30.8 GWh. These figures are detailed in a quarterly report by the industry association Solar Energy Industries Association and the consultancy Benchmark Mineral Intelligence, as reported by Forbes.

This progress has an uncomfortable political address. Utility-scale storage capacity nearly doubled in the first 18 months of Donald Trump’s administration, rising from 88 GWh to 165 GWh.

What changes on the electricity bill

A battery does not generate electricity. It shifts solar energy from midday, when there is a surplus, to late afternoon, when demand spikes and short-term market prices rise.

This reallocation reduces the operation of expensive thermal power plants during peak hours. Part of the savings is passed on to consumer rates.

In the first eight months of 2026, energy storage systems delivered more electricity to the U.S. grid than in the entirety of 2025, according to the report.

The relief is only partial. Electricity demand in the United States has resumed growing after nearly two decades of stagnation, driven by the electrification of vehicles and heating systems, and, above all, by artificial intelligence data centers.

The U.S. electricity bill has three components: the energy purchased, transmission through the grid, and local distribution. Batteries act on the first component by preventing operators from paying the highest prices of the day.

Consumer rates continue to rise. Batteries cushion part of the increase but do not reverse it.

Most of the systems installed in the country have a discharge duration of two to four hours, a window sufficient to cover the afternoon peak and the transition into the evening.

The decline in lithium cell costs over the past decade has made large-scale storage viable. What was once a pilot project has become a grid asset, procured through long-term contracts.

The hostility that did not halt the work

Trump targets solar, wind, and batteries. His administration has cut federal renewable energy incentive programs just as electricity demand is surging, while Congress debates bills to restore them.

The power sector has moved in the opposite direction. Grid operators, utilities, and data center developers are purchasing batteries at the fastest pace possible to meet load demands and improve system reliability.

Those who need to deliver power without blackouts do not have time to wait for ideology to pass. The purchasing decision is technical, made by an operations engineer, not by a campaign committee.

The biggest bottleneck is not the willingness to buy. Generation and storage projects wait years in the queue for connection to the U.S. grid, and this queue has become the primary constraint on expansion.

New factories and Chinese leadership

Two battery cell factories were recently inaugurated in Ohio and Tennessee. A facility in Texas has the capacity to produce 50 GWh of cells per year.

China remains the world’s largest producer of advanced batteries. Domestic U.S. manufacturing is growing from a small base and has not eliminated the dependence on Chinese cells and inputs.

Washington’s protectionist rhetoric has not changed the geography of the supply chain. What changes is the final price of the equipment, and it relies on Asian scale to continue falling.

According to a Forbes report on the industry survey, members of Congress are discussing proposals to restore federal support programs for battery production and the return of incentives for solar, wind, and other clean energy sources. The decision does not rest with the White House.

The Solar Energy Industries Association represents the U.S. solar industry, and Benchmark tracks critical mineral supply chains. The survey by the two organizations has become a reference for those who finance and build energy storage in the country.

Without sufficient battery capacity, the U.S. grid relies more on expensive thermal generation during peak demand, and this cost is passed on to rates. The ongoing expansion reduces this pass-through, but it does not eliminate it as long as demand grows faster than the supply of firm energy.

What has already been contracted cannot be undone by decree. Batteries already purchased, factories already inaugurated, and data centers already operational continue to function.

The bill for those who depend on the grid continues to be determined by the speed at which infrastructure is deployed. In the United States, this speed now depends less on presidential rhetoric and more on the interconnection queue and cell prices.

Sectoral data on installed capacity and generation in the United States are periodically compiled by the Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA), the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA), and the U.S. Department of Energy, as cited in the Forbes report.