Global battery energy storage system (BESS) installed capacity is forecast to increase sixfold between 2025 and 2030, driven by increased demand for storage to support renewable energy systems, GlobalData has said.
According to GlobalData’s Strategic Intelligence: Batteries in Power report, global installed BESS capacity is set to grow at a CAGR of 42% to the end of the decade, to meet growing demand from industry, electrification, AI and data centres.
China and the United States are currently the dominant markets for BESS capacity, accounting for 74.6% as of the end of 2025, driven by regulatory frameworks, utility-scale procurement, and ‘aggressive’ clean energy mandates.
Four-hour systems
“The global power sector is increasingly standardising on four-hour battery energy storage systems rather than two-hour designs,” commented Rehaan Shiledar, power analyst at GlobalData.
“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.”
As an example, under the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) in the US, most battery projects have adopted a four-hour duration, while Australian state tenders in Victoria and New South Wales specify multi-hour storage systems to support renewable deployment. Similar trends have also been observed in the UK and Middle East.
Hybrid facilities
As GlobalData noted, the rise of co-located hybrid facilities, featuring both renewable energy and battery storage projects, is an increasingly common model, enabling developers to share infrastructure, reduce costs and address potential grid constraints.
This is particularly the case in areas that have seen significant data centre development, which require consistent, uninterrupted clean energy.
“BESS is expected to become a main backup and balancing tool for data centres, moving beyond brief uninterruptible power supply (UPS) support,” Shiledar added. “It actively manages power between the grid and IT equipment, protecting systems from grid problems and on-site power limits. Batteries react in milliseconds, so they can handle sudden voltage or frequency issues and provide instant backup during switchover.” Read more here.
