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The United States Energy Information Administration (“EIA”) issued a February 24th report titled:
Solar, Battery Storage to Lead New U.S. Generating Capacity Additions in 2025 (“Report”).
The EIA states that solar and battery storage will account for 81% of the expected total capacity additions of new utility-scale electric-generated capacity with solar constituting over 50% of the increase.
Battery energy storage systems constitute devices that enable energy from renewables to be stored then released. Intelligent battery software can use algorithms to coordinate energy production and computerized control systems to decide when to store energy or release it to the grid. Energy may be released from the battery storage system during times of peak demand.
Besides lithium-ion batteries, a number of other technologies for battery storage are being developed such as:
- Compressed air energy storage
- Mechanical gravity energy storage
- Flow batteries
The Report also states that it expects 63 GW of new utility-scale electric-generated capacity to be added to the United States power grid in 2025. This amount is noted to constitute an almost 30%percent increase from 2024 when 48.6 GW of capacity was installed.
The EIA figures are derived from its Preliminary Monthly Electric Generator Inventory Report.
A copy of the EIA Report can be found here.
