More than 16% of the new utility-scale solar capacity added in the United States this year is co-located with battery storage, up from 2% in 2017, according to new data from the US Energy Information Administration (EIA).
The share could reach 19% for the full year 2026, based on plans for projects coming online in the final three months, and developers' plans for 2027 and 2028 point to more than 30%.
From 2% to over 16%
The EIA figures, published on 30 October and based on its monthly generator survey (EIA-860M), show how quickly batteries have become part of new solar plants. As of September 2026, over 16% of the utility-scale solar capacity added during the year was paired with operable battery storage.
Reported plans for solar coming online in October, November and December suggest the share could rise to 19% for 2026. Plans submitted for 2027 and 2028 show the portion climbing above 30%.
Solar's growing share of the grid
As of September, solar PV made up 13% of total US utility-scale generating capacity, and 18% of that solar capacity was co-located with battery storage, the EIA said.
California, Arizona, New Mexico and Nevada stand out. In these states, the share of solar generation co-located with battery capacity is more than double the national average.
Why developers add batteries
According to the EIA, plants with both resources can send solar output either to the grid or to the battery, depending on wholesale electricity prices. This allows operators to manage their combined output and capture more value as prices change through the day.
The storage boom in numbers
Other recent data point in the same direction. In a forecast reported by Utility Dive on 27 October, BloombergNEF raised its outlook for US energy storage deployments over the next 10 years by 30%, to a cumulative 213.9 GW by 2030 and 434.4 GW by 2036.
BNEF said the US had 20.7 GW / 66.4 GWh of storage co-located with 41.3 GW of solar by the end of 2025, and that about 4 GW of storage was co-located with solar in the first nine months of 2026. The One Big Beautiful Bill Act extended federal tax credit eligibility for storage through 2035, supporting a pipeline of 83.7 GW / 166.1 GWh of storage paired with 149.2 GW of solar.
Globally, BNEF said, the cumulative ratio of installed solar to storage has fallen from 94:1 in 2016 to 7:1 in 2026.
What it means for American developers
Co-location is becoming the default design for new US solar, especially in the Southwest, where the share is already more than twice the national average. For developers, a battery adds cost but lets a plant shift output to higher-priced hours, which matters more as solar takes a larger share of the grid. With plans for 2027 and 2028 pointing to more than 30% of new solar paired with storage, interconnection requests, offtake contracts and financing models will increasingly be built around hybrid plants rather than solar alone.
Source: U.S. Energy Information Administration, 30 October 2026; Utility Dive, 27 October 2026
