A decade ago, large-scale battery storage was considered the mythical Holy Grail to solving renewable energy’s intermittency woes with sunshine and wind. The early pilot projects remained in their infancy—too expensive to rapidly ramp up.
Today, technology advances and dramatic cost decreases combine to set up battery energy storage as the savior for both renewables and the overarching electric grid as power demand soars and Congress rapidly phases out tax credits for wind and solar energy.
The modern electric grid wastes a tremendous amount of power generation when demand isn’t peaking, and battery systems—whose tax credits were largely spared in President Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill—are now here to store that excess power and deploy the electricity as needed when the sun isn’t shining or the wind isn’t gusting or natural gas and coal plants are disrupted, enhancing both grid efficiency and stability. Close to half of all battery storage projects are paired with solar or wind energy projects as part of their symbiotic relationship.
“Without batteries it would be mayhem,” said Izzet Bensusan, founder and CEO of the Captona energy transition investment firm. “The utilities are realizing that without batteries they cannot manage the grid.
“If you don’t have batteries, there’s a chance you may not get power in your home,” Bensusan told Fortune, arguing that the world needs more power—much of which can only come online quickly enough from renewables—and batteries are increasingly necessary for stability.
After record growth in 2024, U.S. battery energy storage systems (BESS) could grow from more than 26 gigawatts (GW) of capacity—enough to power 20 million homes—to anywhere from 120 GW to 150 GW by the end of 2030, depending on the range of projections. The Department of Energy estimates that nearly 19 GW will come online just in 2025 after 10.4 GW were added last year—second in the world after China—although tariff uncertainty may cause a temporary slowdown this year. California and Texas easily lead the way in battery deployment with massive grids and ample land, but the rest of the country is beginning to catch up.
Lithium-ion battery costs have plunged 75% in a decade and the next generation of battery chemistries—sodium-ion, lithium-sulfur, lithium iron phosphate (LFP), and others—are more easily sourced in the U.S. and potentially better aligned with the grid than lithium-ion units initially designed for moving electric vehicles. And battery manufacturers now see grid demand overtaking slumping EV needs in the U.S.
“We’re right at the beginning of the supercycle of investment,” said Cameron Dales, cofounder and president of Peak Energy, which is developing battery storage systems from commonly sourced sodium in the U.S. Dales contends that more than $1 trillion will be spent on BESS growth worldwide over the next 10 years. “We need to get going and build out the capacity. You started to see that over the last two years with the massive growth, but I think we’re at the beginning.”
Painful and beautiful
While the new GOP spending law targets wind and solar power as part of a partisan crusade against renewables, cutting tax credits off after 2027—projects must begin construction by July 2026 or be placed in service by the end of 2027—the key tax credits for large-scale batteries stay in place until 2033 after beginning to phase down in 2030.
One catch is more parts must be manufactured in the U.S.—and less from China, a “foreign entity of concern”—but supply chains are evolving for financial and security needs.
“Energy storage is important whether you’re on the blue side or the red side. Everybody agrees this is critical for the country,” Dales told Fortune.
“We don’t outsource F-16 (fighter jet) manufacturing to another country, and so I think it’s a similar dynamic in batteries,” Dales said. “You need to control the building blocks for how you generate and ultimately store electricity.”
Of note, the U.S. Department of Defense is contracting more with domestic battery manufacturing to power military drones.
Peak has a California manufacturing plant for sodium-ion batteries that utilize abundant U.S. materials without any of China’s dominance of critical minerals. The systems require less cooling so they can operate in harsher temperatures.
After a couple of decades during which U.S. power demand has remained relatively stagnant, domestic electricity consumption is expected to spike by 25% from 2023 to 2035 and roughly 60% from 2023 to 2050, according to the International Energy Agency. A big part of that increase comes from the hyperscalers: Amazon, Google, and Microsoft are investing anywhere from $75 billion to $100 billion each into building data centers for 2025 alone.
The combination of much more demand plus the loss of tax credits is expected to result in more spikes in commercial and residential electricity costs. But incentivized battery storage can at least help mitigate costs.
After all, supply chains for gas-fired turbines for power plants are sold out for the next few years, and new nuclear power is almost a decade out. So, renewables and batteries will represent most of the new power generation for the rest of this decade—regardless of cost.
“I’m going build solar at all costs, and I’m going to charge for it, and people are going to have to pay for it,” Bensusan said. “It can come on online in six to nine months. We don’t really have a choice.”
Evolving dynamics
The new dynamic added to the mix is the improved tax credit environment for battery systems relative to wind and solar, which could change how projects are prioritized.
Of late, more battery systems were co-located with solar farms. Now, more developers might build battery systems and pair them with ancillary solar power instead, said Ravi Manghani, senior director of strategic sourcing for Anza Renewables, which develops software platforms for solar and BESS.
“We might be entering a paradigm where energy storage would actually drive solar growth,” Manghani said. “Up until now, solar was driving the energy storage option. That switch may have flipped because of the way the tax credits phase out.”
While wind power pairs well with battery systems, the highs and lows of gusty weather patterns are harder to predict than the sun and the daily rotation of the Earth. That’s why most new solar farms are paired with battery storage.
While most rechargeable battery systems are designed to hold four or six hours of electricity, they can be built to hold 10 hours or more—it’s just costly. But even four hours of electricity deployed when people come home from work and energy usage spikes in the early evening is extremely beneficial for the grid.
“It’s like getting a washer without a dryer. These things really reinforce each other,” said Aurora Solar cofounder and CEO Chris Hopper about the natural pairing of solar and batteries.
Still, while many solar and wind projects will sget built with or without tax credits, at least 20% fewer will become reality than anticipated, according to projections. Those losses could still impact battery deployment.
And, while costs continue to fall and domestic manufacturing for batteries ramps up, much more progress is still needed—and faster.
Silicon Valley’s Lyten is betting on building BESS using lithium-sulfur batteries with materials from the U.S. and Europe—negating any needs for nickel, manganese, cobalt, and graphite, which are all critical minerals dominated by China.
“To really get to that next jump that we call mass-market energy storage where you can deploy these very economically everywhere around the world, you need another step change down in battery costs,” said Keith Norman, Lyten’s chief sustainability officer. “Our bet on lithium sulfur is that, in the long term, the lowest cost materials are going to win.”
Already focusing on battery-cell manufacturing in California and a planned lithium-sulfur “gigafactory” in Nevada, in July, Lyten just acquired Europe’s largest BESS manufacturing operation in Poland from Northvolt. Lyten also aims to add more BESS manufacturing in the U.S., Norman said.
“We do believe renewables are going to keep going forward, and almost all of that is going to be paired with batteries. What we’re seeing is just an insatiable demand for more power,” Norman said.
“In a world where the tax credits are going to be harder to come by you really need to juice the economics as much as possible for renewables. That really leads you to needing energy storage so you can get every electron that asset produces turned into value.”
A bystander who rushed and disarmed one of the Bondi Beach attackers has won praise from leaders around the world, including US President Donald Trump and hedge fund billionaire Bill Ackman, who announced a reward program for community heroes.
Extraordinary footage of the civilian’s actions began circulating on social media on Sunday, shortly after two men, later identified as a father and son, started shooting into a crowd gathered to celebrate the first day of Hanukkah. The massacre has left at least 16 people dead in the worst terrorist attack in Australia’s history.
In the mobile-phone video, which has not been verified by Bloomberg News, one of the attackers is standing near a tree and firing. A few meters away, a crouched man emerges from behind a parked car. He grabs the shooter from behind and wrestles the weapon from his hands. Local media named the bystander as Ahmed el Ahmed, a 43-year-old father-of-two from south Sydney. He was shot twice and is being treated in the hospital, according to reports.
He was also soon lauded for his feat. Trump said at the White House that Ahmed had saved many lives and expressed “great respect” for him. In Sydney, New South Wales Premier Chris Minns went further, describing Ahmed’s wrestle with the shooter as “the most unbelievable scene I’ve ever seen.”
“That man is a genuine hero and I’ve got no doubt there are many, many people alive tonight as a result of his bravery,” Minns said at a press conference late Sunday.
Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese also praised Ahmed, and other bystanders who helped treat victims in the immediate aftermath of the shooting.
“People rushing towards danger to show the best of the Australian character,” Albanese told reporters Monday. “That’s who we are, people who stand up for our values.”
Pershing Square Capital Management’s founder Ackman called Ahmed “a brave hero” and said his hedge fund firm would establish a reward program for people who had carried out similar acts.
The top donor to a gofundme page set up for the “hero” who tackled the shooter is listed as William Ackman, who gave $99,999. More than $170,000 has been raised so far.
Salesforce Inc. Founder and Chief Executive Officer Marc Benioff also expressed his gratitude for Ahmed in a post on X.
Next year should mark a shift in the housing market after years of largely being frozen in place, according to Mike Simonsen, chief economist at top residential real estate brokerage Compass.
Home sales flatlined amid unaffordable conditions after rising demand collided with tepid supply growth, pushing up home prices. Would-be buyers became so discouraged that demand cooled and remains slow.
Prices are now becoming more favorable for house hunters, a trend that should continue in 2026 and change the narrative in the housing market.
“In the next era, that story flips. So sales are starting to move higher, but prices are capped or maybe down. Incomes are rising faster than prices, and so affordability improves for the first time in a bunch of years,” Simonsen told CNBC on Friday. “It’s not a dramatic improvement, but it’s the start of the new era.”
His view echoes a recent report from Redfin, which also cited stronger income and weaker homes prices as it predicted a “Great Housing Reset” in 2026.
In addition to potential buyers giving up on finding an affordable home, sellers have been giving up on finding someone willing to buy at the price they want.
As a result, the number of homes that were withdrawn from the market jumped this year. In June, these so-called delistings shot up 47% from a year earlier.
Simonsen said listing withdrawals tend to be owner-occupied homes, meaning they could be latent demand as well as supply. That’s because two transactions would be needed: owners want to buy a new home but must sell their current one.
“In an environment where conditions improve a little bit, we actually estimate that that’s a representation of shadow demand—people that want to move, people that have delayed moves for maybe four years now,” he said, adding that there are about 150,000 such homeowners.
His housing market outlook for a new era of improving affordability doesn’t depend on a steep drop in mortgage rates. In fact, a plunge might spur so much demand that prices would overheat.
Simonsen expects rates to stay in the low-6% range, allowing sales to grow while also keeping home prices in check as more inventory comes on the market.
The price environment is already showing auspicious signs for prospective buyers. More than half of U.S. homes have dropped in value over the last year, but homeowners can still sell with a net gain as values are up a median 67% since their home’s last sale, accordion to data from Zillow.
And a separate report fromZillow found that homebuyers are getting record-high discounts. While the typical individual discount remains $10,000, desperate sellers are increasingly offering multiple reductions as muted demand leaves homes on the market for longer. As a result, the cumulative price cut in October hit $25,000.
“Most homeowners have seen their home values soar over the past several years, which gives them the flexibility for a price cut or two while still walking away with a profit,” Zillow Senior Economist Kara Ng said in a statement last month. “These discounts are bringing more listings in line with buyers’ budgets, and helping fuel the most active fall housing market in three years. Patient buyers are reaping the rewards as the market continues to rebalance.”
A man who carried out an attack in Syria that killed three U.S. citizens had joined Syria’s internal security forces as a base security guard two months earlier and was recently reassigned amid suspicions that he might be affiliated with the Islamic State group, a Syrian official told The Associated Press Sunday.
The attack Saturday in the Syrian desert near the historic city of Palmyra killed two U.S. service members and one American civilian and wounded three others. It also wounded three members of the Syrian security forces who clashed with the gunman, interior ministry spokesperson Nour al-Din al-Baba said.
Al-Baba said that Syria’s new authorities had faced shortages in security personnel and had to recruit rapidly after the unexpected success of a rebel offensive last year that intended to capture the northern city of Aleppo but ended up overthrowing the government of former President Bashar Assad.
“We were shocked that in 11 days we took all of Syria and that put a huge responsibility in front of us from the security and administration sides,” he said.
The attacker was among 5,000 members who recently joined a new division in the internal security forces formed in the desert region known as the Badiya, one of the places where remnants of the Islamic State extremist group have remained active.
Attacker had raised suspicions
Al-Baba said the internal security forces’ leadership had recently become suspicious that there was an infiltrator leaking information to IS and began evaluating all members in the Badiya area.
The probe raised suspicions last week about the man who later carried out the attack, but officials decided to continue monitoring him for a few days to try to determine if he was an active member of IS and to identify the network he was communicating with if so, al-Baba said. He did not name the attacker.
At the same time, as a “precautionary measure,” he said, the man was reassigned to guard equipment at the base at a location where he would be farther from the leadership and from any patrols by U.S.-led coalition forces.
On Saturday, the man stormed a meeting between U.S. and Syrian security officials who were having lunch together and opened fire after clashing with Syrian guards, al-Baba said. The attacker was shot and killed at the scene.
Al-Baba acknowledged that the incident was “a major security breach” but said that in the year since Assad’s fall “there have been many more successes than failures” by security forces.
In the wake of the shooting, he said, the Syrian army and internal security forces “launched wide-ranging sweeps of the Badiya region” and broke up a number of alleged IS cells. The interior ministry said in a statement later that five suspects were arrested in the city of Palmyra.
The U.S. has had forces on the ground in Syria for over a decade, with a stated mission of fighting IS, with about 900 troops present there today.
Before Assad’s ouster, Washington had no diplomatic relations with Damascus and the U.S. military did not work directly with the Syrian army. Its main partner at the time was the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces in the country’s northeast.
That has changed over the past year. Ties have warmed between the administrations of U.S. President Donald Trump and Syrian interim President Ahmad al-Sharaa, the former leader of an Islamist insurgent group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham that used to be listed by Washington as a terrorist organization.
In November, al-Sharaa became the first Syrian president to visit Washington since the country’s independence in 1946. During his visit, Syria announced its entry into the global coalition against the Islamic State, joining 89 other countries that have committed to combating the group.
U.S. officials have vowed retaliation against IS for the attack but have not publicly commented on the fact that the shooter was a member of the Syrian security forces.
Critics of the new Syrian authorities have pointed to Saturday’s attack as evidence that the security forces are deeply infiltrated by IS and are an unreliable partner.
Mouaz Moustafa, executive director of the Syrian Emergency Task Force, an advocacy group that seeks to build closer relations between Washington and Damascus, said that is unfair.
Despite both having Islamist roots, HTS and IS were enemies and often clashed over the past decade.
Among former members of HTS and allied groups, Moustafa, said, “It’s a fact that even those who carry the most fundamentalist of beliefs, the most conservative within the fighters, have a vehement hatred of ISIS.”
“The coalition between the United States and Syria is the most important partnership in the global fight against ISIS because only Syria has the expertise and experience to deal with this,” he said.
Later Sunday, Syria’s state-run news agency SANA reported that four members of the internal security forces were killed and a fifth was wounded after gunmen opened fire on them in the city of Maarat al-Numan in Idlib province.
It was not immediately clear who the gunmen were or whether the attack was linked to the Saturday’s shooting.
Politics8 years ago