Governor Newsom announces California’s record growth in battery storage and clean energy leadership at COP30

Energy storage is powering California’s clean and reliable energy future.By capturing excess solar and wind power when it’s plentiful and releasing it when demand peaks, batteries keep the grid stable and make it possible to rely on renewable energy around the clock. California has now gone three consecutive years without even needing to call a Flex Alert for voluntary conservation—a testament to rapidly building the state’s strong battery storage fleet.

The numbers tell the story of California’s energy dominance: California has more installed battery capacity than every other jurisdiction on the planet except China. Of the state’s total energy storage capacity, 13,880 MW come from large utility-scale projects, while the rest is from behind-the-meter battery systems installed on more than 200,000 homes (2,213 MW) and businesses, schools and local government facilities (849 MW). Within the United States, California leads all states on installed storage capacity, followed by Texas with roughly 9,000 MW. 

While the Trump administration has repeatedly dismissed clean energy as unreliable and too expensive, California is proving otherwise. Clean energy is now the cheapest source of electricity generation globally and the cost of battery storage has fallen by 93% since 2010.   

Battery storage has already changed how California weathers extreme heat and demand surges. When unprecedented heatwaves hit the state in 2020 and 2022, it underscored the need for more flexible energy resources. State agencies, utilities and grid operators coordinated efforts to help procure and deploy more battery storage as quickly as possible.  

Those investments are paying off. Battery storage, along with new clean generation resources, has strengthened the grid’s ability to meet demand during hot summer days and extreme weather. Even as California added record amounts of new clean energy and faced warmer-than-average temperatures in 2024, the grid held steady — a sign of growing reliability and resilience. 

Battery systems now provide enough capacity to meet the equivalent of roughly one-quarter of California’s record peak demand for several hours. The rapid expansion of California’s battery storage is central to its strategy for reaching the goal of 100 percent clean electricity by 2045. Renewable energy already supplies nearly 67 percent of in-state retail electricity sales, and California continues to retire fossil-fuel plants and will eliminate coal power from its electricity mix by the end of this year. The California Independent System Operator (CAISO)—which serves roughly 80 percent of the state’s electricity consumers—has, on average, met demand with 100 percent clean energy for nearly six hours every day so far this year.