Where storage is set to thrive and fade under the OBBB
Existing battery projects in California and Texas see upside, while hybrid storage bets in the Midcontinent Independent System Operator (MISO) territory and the Southeast face shrinking margins under the revised tax credit rules.
Existing battery projects in California and Texas see upside, while hybrid storage bets in the Midcontinent Independent System Operator (MISO) territory and the Southeast face shrinking margins under the revised tax credit rules.
While the One Big Beautiful Bill (OBBB) didn’t crush the U.S. battery storage industry, it redrew where the industry’s next wave will likely break.
Standalone storage kept its investment tax credit, but what’s waiting down the road for hybrid solar-plus-storage projects in slower-growing regions is murky at best.
“The markets that will be hit the hardest are the ones who already have had the most growth of storage, and those who have been expecting the most growth so far,” said Michael Thomas, the founder and CEO of Cleanview, a market intelligence platform that tracks U.S. clean energy projects in real time.
He told ESS News that markets across the country will feel the impacts of the bill, as storage “was expected to play this real role in balancing the grid and helping avoid things like brownouts and blackouts.”
California has already reaped that benefit; Thomas cited the state’s summer of rolling brownouts and blackouts in 2022 as a key example of how the storage built in the three years since has already helped balance the state’s grid. He also noted that the ERCOT grid operator in Texas has reduced the risk of brownouts and blackouts from 10% to a single percent following the storage boom.
To continue reading, please visit our ESS News website…
What's Your Reaction?
