California passes 5GW of grid-scale battery storage

LinkedIn
Twitter
Reddit
Facebook
Email

California has passed 5GW of grid-scale battery storage energy storage (BESS) projects, grid operator CAISO has revealed.

The state has long been a leader for BESS deployments, with an ambitious renewable energy goal of 90% by 2030 and the Resource Adequacy framework enabling long-term remuneration of large-scale BESS projects providing certainty for investments.

As of the start of this month, the state now has 5.6GW of grid-scale connected BESS online, CEO Elliot Mainzer said this week (11 July).

“With our state experiencing more frequent climate extremes such as record heat waves and droughts, it is essential to invest in innovative technologies like energy storage to make sure we can continue to reliably power the world’s 4th largest economy,” Mainzer said.

This article requires Premium SubscriptionBasic (FREE) Subscription

Enjoy 12 months of exclusive analysis

Not ready to commit yet?
  • Regular insight and analysis of the industry’s biggest developments
  • In-depth interviews with the industry’s leading figures
  • Annual digital subscription to the PV Tech Power journal
  • Discounts on Solar Media’s portfolio of events, in-person and virtual

Or continue reading this article for free

The year started off quietly for the state, however, with CAISO’s official figures showing virtually no large-scale projects coming online in the first quarter, with the capacity actually decreasing from December 2022 to January 2023, shown in the graph below. In its place, the ERCOT, Texas market, led the charge, accounting for 70% of nationwide deployments in the first three months of the year.

Activity in California has picked up in the second quarter, with commissioned projects covered by Energy-Storage.news from global energy firm RWE and utility SDG&E.

Projects in California make the bulk of their revenues from Resource Adequacy agreements with utilities like SDG&E, the other investor-owned utilities PG&E and SCE, as well as various smaller electric co-operatives like community choice aggregators (CCAs), as well as trading energy.

The ancillary services market in California is relatively small compared to the quantity of grid-scale BESS, so these account for very small part of revenues for projects.

Solar PV-heavy markets like the southern US and south of Europe tend to be more of an energy, load shifting opportunity while wind-heavy markets like the Nordics, UK and Germany lean more towards the provision of ancillary services.

See all Energy-Storage.news coverage of the California market here.

Read Next

Premium
August 28, 2025
Energy-Storage.news Premium speaks with Sergio Melendez, storage sector manager at CAISO, and Ali Karimian, market optimisation director at GridBeyond, about regulating Bid Cost Recovery Payments in the California Independent System Operator market.
August 28, 2025
California utility Pacific Gas and Electric (PG&E) has pushed back recommissioning of the Elkhorn battery energy storage system (BESS) by approximately one year, to 30 June 2026.
Premium
August 27, 2025
Following in the footsteps of several other US jurisdictions this year, officials at California’s Orange County are one step closer to amending zoning laws to allow the development of BESS. 
August 27, 2025
Three companies, Pacifico Energy, Zenith Volts, and Fermi America have begun expanding power generation and energy storage capabilities for US data centre development.
August 26, 2025
Governor of New Jersey, US, Phil Murphy, signed legislation into law to reach 2,000MW of energy storage capacity by 2030, and nearly doubling the state’s clean energy capacity.

Most Popular

Email Newsletter