A total of around 4.9GW/14GWh of grid-scale BESS entered commercial operations around the world last month, a 29% fall year-on-year owing to an unusually slow month in China.
That’s according to market intelligence firm Rho Motion’s Battery Energy Stationary Storage Monthly Database, the data from which over the course of 2025 has shown that China is driving battery energy storage system (BESS) deployments globally, accounting for 50-90% of the figure each month.
China still driving the figures and now has a 1GWh sodium-ion BESS
China still managed to bring online 3,436MW/10,256MWh of capacity in November, 73% of the global total. However, this was less than expected because of the significant policy change on energy storage seen in the country this year, which has led to projects being delayed or even cancelled. These policy changes were outlined in a recent Energy-Storage.news article by our China-based journalist Carrie Xiao.
The largest project to come online in November was in China, the 500MW/2GWh Anhui Conch Cement Tongliao Naimanqi Energy Storage Project, and there were three others that were over 1GWh in capacity too.
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One of these was actually comprised of sodium-ion batteries, the Xingkong Na Dazhou Maliu Industrial Park SIB Energy Storage Project, making it by far the largest sodium-ion BESS in the world. A company called Xinkong Na provided the technology, Rho Motion said.
China is already the site of the largest sodium-ion BESS we’ve reported on, a 50MW/100MWh system commissioned in mid-2024 which had a plan to double in size.
Global deployments up 31% in year-to-date
The slower month hasn’t stopped 2025 being a bumper year for BESS deployments globally this year, with the figure for January through November reaching 174GWh of installations, up 31% compared to the same period in 2024.
Over 18.5GWh of projects had technology providers assigned and 21GWh entered construction during November across the globe. Eight separate projects of 1GWh or over entered construction in November, Rho Motion added.
Rest of world
Outside of China, the monthly figures were made up of deployments in the Oceania region (mainly Australia), South & Central America (mainly Chile), North America and Europe.
The Ocean region had a particularly strong month, with 700MW/1,800MWh of capacity coming online. This was most likely primarily comprised of Singapore-based Equis and the Victorian state body SEC’s 600MW/1,600MWh Melbourne Renewable Energy Hub BESS.
North America saw 418MW/947MWh come online, which included US projects in Texas from GridStor and RWE of 220MW/440MWh and 100MW/200MWh respectively.
Meanwhile, projects totalling 116MW/660MWh came online in South & Central America while 157MW/289MWh entered commercial operations in Europe.
