A Solar Energy Industries Association report found that Texas installed more energy storage than any other state, accounting for 27% of the nationwide growth.
San Antonio Express-News file photo
A Solar Energy Industries Association report found that Texas installed more energy storage than any other state, accounting for 27% of the nationwide growth.
San Antonio Express-News file photo
A record amount of battery energy storage was installed nationwide during the first quarter of the year, with Texas playing a key role in the surge, according to a Solar Energy Industries Association report.
There was enough storage installed across the country in the first four months of the year to deliver 10 gigawatts of energy over an hour, a 32% increase compared with the first quarter of 2025.
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Texas is installing more utility-scale storage than any other state, accounting for 27% of the growth. The added storage is capable of generating 2.7 gigawatts over an hour — enough to power 675,000 homes during a sunny day.
The next closest states were Arizona, which added enough storage to produce 940 megawatts over an hour, and California, with 936 megawatts over an hour.
“Texas is really one of the leaders,” said Joan White, the association’s senior director of storage and interconnection policy. “I think it’s because, partially following Winter Storm Uri, there’s a high interest in maintaining reliability. Texas has needed major energy resources to come online in a short amount of time to keep the lights on.”
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READ MORE: CPS Energy’s 120-megawatt battery project aims to strengthen San Antonio’s grid
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San Antonio’s CPS Energy forecasts that its peak demand could quadruple as data centers flock to the state. The city-owned utility has been actively expanding storage in its portfolio, which currently accounts for nearly 5% of its total generation. Its latest project, a 120-megawatt energy storage system in partnership with San Antonio-based OCI Energy, started construction this week on the Southeast Side.
The speed in which storage and solar can come online are one of their advantages, White said. Utility-size storage and solar projects need lead times of only one to two years.
“For a state that’s seeing massive growth in demand, energy storage, and especially energy storage with solar, is one of the quickest resources to meet that demand,” White said.
But, she added, “we’re seeing a ton of price pressure. A lot of that’s coming from the rising demand driven by AI and data centers.”
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As more energy storage is being produced, the better the U.S. becomes at manufacturing and deploying it, resulting in a “remarkable reduction in cost for energy storage,” White said. Batteries increasingly are being made in the United States, she said, driven by consumer technology.
Texas and California are now tied with each having a total of 17 gigawatts of energy storage in their portfolios. This is enough energy to power more than 4 million homes on a summer day.
“In Texas, there’s a ton of solar, so it’s soaking up solar during the day, and then selling it during those peak periods when prices are really high,” White said. “That helps keep prices down.”
RELATED: 2021 winter storm exposed grid weakness; part of Texas’ solution is being built near S.A.
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The difference between the states comes from their battery storage system’s duration times, White said, which is is driven by each state’s market.
On average, Texas battery projects have a duration of two hours before needing to be recharged, while California batteries average duration is nearly four hours. While Texas’ market can operate using batteries with a shorter duration, California has longer peaks it needs to cover she said. That spurs the California market toward storage with longer duration times to ensure there’s enough capacity available to meet consumer demand.
Regardless of the duration, White said storage has transformed how energy can be used. Before storage systems came into play, energy was “the only commodity on Earth that (had) to be produced and consumed exactly in the same microsecond.” She sees the addition of energy storage as comparable to how refrigeration revolutionized daily life.
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“It’s going to change everything about the way that we think about and use electricity,” White said. “I’m excited to see the growth of the industry, because it’s going to make grid operators’ lives easier, it’s going to make consumers’ lives easier … We’re at the tip of the iceberg.”