RESEARCH

Global Battery Storage Additions Topped 100 GW for the First Time in 2025 -- Trackers Split From 106 GW to 112 GW

Energy · 2026-07-18 10:07

BloombergNEF, the IEA, and Wood Mackenzie all confirm that global energy storage additions (excluding pumped hydro) exceeded 100 gigawatts for the first time in 2025 -- a threshold storage reached faster than either solar or wind did historically. But the three trackers' full-year totals diverge by about 6 GW: BNEF counts 112 GW, the IEA reports 108 GW, and Wood Mackenzie puts the figure at 106 GW. All three agree China supplied roughly half to three-fifths of global additions and that utility-scale LFP batteries dominated the buildout, illustrating how differently each organization scopes what counts as grid-scale storage.

Findings

BloombergNEF counted 112 GW / 307 GWh of global energy storage additions in 2025 (+48% YoY), with China at 54% and the US at 16% of additions -- the first year annual additions exceeded 100 GW, a threshold storage hit in about 4 years after 10 GW versus roughly 8 years for solar and 15 for wind.
The IEA's Global Energy Review 2026 puts 2025 battery storage additions at 108 GW (+40% YoY), with utility-scale accounting for about 80% of new capacity and China supplying around 60% of global additions, followed by the US and Europe.
Wood Mackenzie counted 106 GW added in 2025 (+43% YoY from 73 GW in 2024), pushing cumulative global capacity to roughly 270 GW, with utility-scale projects at 82% of installations and China at a 54% share.
All three trackers agree on the headline -- 2025 was the first year global battery storage additions broke 100 GW, and LFP chemistry made up about 90% of deployments -- but disagree by up to 6 GW (~5.5%) on the exact total, likely reflecting different scoping of grid-scale/utility-scale versus behind-the-meter capacity and different cutoff dates for provisional year-end data.

Delta Engine result

↔ Divergence Detected — Δ 0.0541 (threshold 0.05)

IEA T5 90
BloombergNEF T2 95
Wood Mackenzie T2 92

Evidence quality

avg 68.3 · min 55 · max 95 · spread 40