BNEF Forecasts 188 GW of Global Energy Storage Additions in 2026, Up 45%

India is the fastest mover. BNEF says tender-driven annual additions will top 6 GW this year, up from a few hundred megawatts last year, which it describes as 26 times more batteries than in 2025. Voltgrid News reported earlier on a Vikram Solar unit's Tamil Nadu battery assembly plan. Australia will almost double its annual additions. Beyond the UK, Germany and Italy, which led European build last year, BNEF lists Bulgaria, Romania, Poland, France, Greece, the Netherlands and Ukraine among countries reaching gigawatt-scale additions this year.

What it means for the grid and for suppliers

Storage is increasingly built next to solar. BNEF counts as much as 69 GW / 196 GWh of storage paired with 299 GW of solar by the end of 2025, and says solar curtailment and price cannibalization in the US, Australia and Chile keep pushing developers to add batteries. For grid operators, that means more flexible capacity arriving where midday solar output is already being cut back.

Supply chains are being redrawn at the same time. BNEF says the US is using tariffs and incentives for domestic storage production while restricting equipment tied to Chinese supply chains, and that the European Union and Japan are guided by similar cybersecurity and supply-chain security concerns. Chinese equipment suppliers are, as a result, turning to the Middle East, Latin America and Sub-Saharan Africa, where restrictions are lighter.

On chemistry, BNEF expects lithium iron phosphate (LFP) to remain the main storage chemistry over the next decade because of its cost, cycle life and supply-chain dominance. Sodium-ion is gaining traction as LFP material prices rise; BNEF says it has a lower fire risk and can run across a wide temperature range, but limited manufacturing scale and cost competitiveness remain hurdles.

How it compares and what to watch

The outlook sits alongside monthly tracking data. As Voltgrid reported, global grid battery installs hit 20.4 GWh in September, a separate dataset from a different source, so the two should not be compared directly.

BNEF projects cumulative storage capacity to grow 10-fold from 2025 levels to 3 terawatts, or 11 terawatt-hours, in 2036, with the growth engine shifting toward Latin America, Sub-Saharan Africa, Southeast Asia and other European countries. The figures are BNEF forecasts, not installed capacity, and BNEF's full report sits behind its subscription, so country-level splits beyond those in its public summary are not confirmed here.