A total of 6.9GW/17.1GWh of grid-scale BESS came online last month, as per the most recent figures from Benchmark Mineral Intelligence.
The figure is a roughly 60% increase on the same figure from February 2025, when 4.5GW/10.5GWh of battery energy storage system (BESS) capacity was recorded as coming online.
For last month’s figure, around 53% was deployed in China, 9% in Europe, 15% in North America and 21% in Australia, with the smaller remainder from Asia excluding China.
This article is part of a monthly series using the data from Benchmark, which recently acquired downstream market intelligence firm Rho Motion and has now integrated it into its own brand name.
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Regional figures
China has accounted for at least 50% of global deployments in most months since we started reporting on the data.
Some 4,186MW/9,140MWh came online in the country, which is by far the world’s largest battery and BESS market by both upstream manufacturing capacity and downstream deployments. Two projects over 2GWh came online there.
However the largest project to come online anywhere in February was the 2.4GWh Collie BESS in Australia, which we reported on at the start of the month. That, along with the 619MWh phase one of the Supernode project, helped the wider Oceania region have one of its best months yet.
In North America, 785MW/2,547MWh was put into commercial operation in February. We reported on major US projects coming online from Alliant Energy in Iowa, Leeward Renewable Energy in Arizona and Plus Power in Maine, plus a 1.2GWh one in Canada from Boralex.
Meanwhile in Europe some 786MW/1,497MWh came online. Benchmark said that this includes the 1GWh Coalburn BESS from Alcemi, although its completion has not been reported publicly.
Benchmark added that 161GWh entered the project pipeline in February, bringing the total announced projects over the course of the first two months of 2026 to just under 300GWh. A total of 38 giga-scale projects were announced this month, the largest of which was the 30GWh Xcel Energy Form Energy iron-air battery project in Minnesota.
The Energy Storage Summit USA will be held from 24-25 March 2026, in Dallas, Texas. It features keynote speeches and panel discussions on topics like FEOC challenges, power demand forecasting, and managing the BESS supply chain. For complete information, visit the Energy Storage Summit USA 2026.
