EIA: 16% of new US utility solar is paired with batteries, up from 2% in 2017
Victoria Shinder1 min readMore than 16% of the utility-scale solar capacity added in the United States this year through September is co-located with operable battery storage, compared with 2% in 2017, the US Energy Information Administration said on 30 October, citing operator reports on its EIA-860M survey. Plans for solar due online in the last three months of the year could lift the 2026 share to 19%, and plans submitted for 2027 and 2028 put it above 30%.
The agency explains the logic in price terms: in regions with a lot of solar, wholesale prices tend to fall when solar output is high and rise as it fades. A plant with both solar and a battery can send its output to the grid or into storage depending on price, and manage the combined output to maximise its value.
As of September, solar photovoltaics made up 13% of total US utility-scale generating capacity, and 18% of that solar capacity is co-located with batteries. The Southwest leads: in California, Arizona, New Mexico and Nevada the co-located share is more than double the national average. EIA notes that the solar and storage units at one plant often enter service at different times, which its monthly data tracks.
What it means
The trend is the market answering its own price signal. Where solar has pushed midday prices down, a solar plant without storage sells most of its output in the cheapest hours, so new projects add batteries to move energy into the evening. The planning data matter more than this year's figure: if a third of the 2027–28 pipeline is hybrid, interconnection studies and capacity rules written for stand-alone plants will be handling a different kind of asset.