World’s battery storage capacity to grow sixfold by 2030, says GlobalData

Global battery energy storage installed capacity will soar between 2025 and 2030, according to London-headquartered research firm GlobalData, driven by rising demand from electrification, industry and data centres, alongside falling lithium-ion costs and stronger supply chains.

A 42% compound annual growth rate will drive global battery energy storage system (BESS) capacity through 2030, according to GlobalData’s new “Strategic Intelligence: Batteries in Power (2026)” report, with China and the United States together holding 74.6% of installed capacity at the end of 2025.

Australia has emerged as the third-largest market worldwide for grid-scale battery energy storage capacity, with total installed capacity in the National Electricity Market (NEM), including both fully commissioned facilities and projects still in their commissioning phase, more than doubling in the past year to exceed 9 GW. In addition, more than 1 GW of grid-scale battery capacity has been added in Western Australia’s Wholesale Electricity Market (WEM) in the past 12 months.

The Australian Energy Market Operator’s (AEMO’s) latest Quarterly Energy Dynamics report shows 2.7 GW of battery capacity was commissioned in the main grid in the past three months, while a total of 0.5 GW of solar plus battery capacity reached full output during the June quarter.

AEMO and the relevant network service providers also approved 3.6 GW of new battery energy storage connection applications during the quarter, as well as 1.8 GW hybrid solar plus battery projects. Another 39.6 GW of new capacity is progressing through the end-to-end connection process from application to commissioning. Of that total, 32.9 GW is grid-forming, 6.5 GW is grid-following and 0.2 GW is compressed air storage.

The report shows that battery projects in Australian are increasingly providing longer-term storage with 31% of battery projects in the pipeline medium storage batteries, up from 16% last year.

GlobalData said the industry is shifting from two-hour to four-hour battery systems as higher shares of solar and wind widen the daily mismatch between generation and demand, making it more valuable to shift midday solar output into the evening peak.

Rehaan Shiledar, power analyst at GlobalData, said regulators increasingly treat four-hour duration as a baseline for capacity credit and resource adequacy.

“The global power sector is increasingly standardising on four-hour battery energy storage systems rather than two-hour designs,” he said. “Higher shares of solar and wind create longer daily mismatches between generation and demand. It makes multi-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.”

The research firm said co-located hybrid plants, especially solar-plus-storage, are becoming the default because sharing a single site and interconnection cuts cost and schedule risk. The battery also increases revenue by capturing curtailed solar and shifting delivery into higher-price hours like the evening peak.

“Energy shifting has become the fulcrum of the battery storage value proposition, recasting batteries from ancillary grid-support tools into system-critical infrastructure,” Shiledar said.

“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.”

The report also highlighted growing demand for batteries as backup and balancing infrastructure for data centres.