A total of 18GWh of large-scale battery energy storage system (BESS) capacity came online in July 2026, of which China accounted for 70%.
The monthly figure brings the total deployed globally in the first seven months of the year to 154GWh, up 27%, according to the latest monthly data from Benchmark Mineral Intelligence, reported on as part of a monthly series for ESN Premium.
A total of 6,199MW/18,817MWh of capacity come online in the month. Some 70%, 4,568MW/13,019MWh, of that was in China.
The activity brings the total globally installed grid-scale BESS capacity to around 274GW/716GWh as of the end of July, according to Benchmark’s data.
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China typically dominates the figures each month, with a few exceptions, including last month when Saudi Arabia’s 2.5GW/12.5GWh meant the Middle East was the leading region.
The largest project to enter operations in July anywhere was a 400MW/2.4GWh, which came online in Inner Mongolia, China.Â
North America and Oceania/Australia also had good months in July, seeing over 1GWh come online, while Europe saw nearly 2.5GWh, one of its best months ever.
There, Greenvolt inaugurated a 200MW/800MWh project in Poland while Slovenské elektrárne (SE) commissioned a 36MW/72MWh system in Slovakia, both the largest in each country. In the middle of the month, we published a roundup covering 692MWh of capacity coming online across projects in Germany, Estonia, Belgium, Denmark and Bulgaria.
Meanwhile, most of Oceania’s figure comes from the 1GWh stage 2 of Quinbrook’s Supernode BESS.
See the full table for regional deployments in July 2026 below.
| Region | Megawatts (MW) | Megawatt-hours (MWh) |
| Africa | 95 | 540 |
| Asia (ex China) | 110 | 340 |
| China | 4,568 | 13,019 |
| Europe | 833 | 2,472 |
| Middle East | ||
| North America | 328 | 1,256 |
| Oceania | 265 | 1,190 |
| South & Central America | ||
| Total | 6,199 | 18,817 |
