The first monthly global grid-scale BESS deployment figures for 2026 are in from Rho Motion, showing a year-on-year fall and China continuing to account for the majority of activity.
Data from the research firm, part of Benchmark Mineral Intelligence, show that around 3.5GW/10.5GWh of grid-scale battery energy storage system (BESS) entered commercial operations in January.
That is a roughly 25% fall on the 5.2GW/13.8GWh that came online in January 2025, when Energy-Storage.news launched this monthly series for ESN Premium.
China itself saw deployments fall substantially too, with around 1.9GW/6.2GWh coming online, a sharp 30-50% drop from the 3.9GW/9.52GWh in the same period last year.
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The Chinese domestic market’s growth is expected to be less rapid going forward after a significant policy shift, though it is still likely to drive the global figures for some time. See recent reporting on the key trends from our China team here and here.
The Oceania region had its strongest month to-date with over 2GWh installed, the majority of which was the Origin Eraring BESS in Australia at 1.77GWh.
The largest project to come online in January meanwhile was the CGDC Bayinguoleng Ruoqiang Standalone Energy Storage Project in Xinjiang, China, at 2GWh.
Europe had a strong month, with 628MW/1,358MWh entering commercial operations. Notable projects that we reported on in January which may help make up that figure are a 505MWh one in Bulgaria, a UK one totalling 600MWh, three Greek ones totalling 144MWh, and two in Spain totalling 120MWh.
In North America, 169MW/523MWh came online, while in South & Central America there was 110MW/220MWh that did so. The latter is all from Atlantica’s co-located BESS project called ‘Chile PV 3’, announced in January.
Notably, some 15.6GWh of BESS projects reached the phase of technology supply deals or construction start. Six of these projects were 1GWh or over, in China (three), the US, Romania and Italy.
The US one was the Pioneer solar-plus-storage project from IPP Brightnight in Arizona.
In Italy, developer and IPP Aer Soléir reached FID on a 250MW, 4-hour BESS in Italy, called Rondissone, claimed as the largest project under construction in the country.
Meanwhile in Romania, IPP Enery announced the start of construction on a 761MW solar, 1GWh BESS project.
See the previous pieces in this series, covering 2025, below:
