IRENA Puts Battery Storage Cost Decline at 93% Since 2010 With Further Cuts Forecast
IRENA's cost trajectory data sharpens the deployment case for utility-scale storage, but supply chain bottlenecks and geographic concentration set the pace.
Battery storage costs have fallen 93% since 2010, IRENA estimated in data published Saturday (2026-08-29), a compression that is reshaping how grid planners and power traders assess dispatch economics.6
The agency added that firm solar costs are expected to drop by another 30% by 2030. That outlook puts pressure on peaking gas plant economics across deregulated markets and positions storage less as a grid-balancing supplement and more as a direct competitor for capacity held historically by thermal generation.6
Evidence of that shift is already visible in wholesale markets. In Queensland, battery storage systems set the wholesale electricity price 25.5% of the time in 2025, up from roughly 1% four years earlier, according to data published by Australia's energy regulator, the AER. Frequency control ancillary service costs in the state fell to their lowest since 2016, as battery systems and newer technologies eroded the position of conventional generators in price-setting.5
Germany tells a parallel story on the commercial segment. German business battery capacity doubled from 740 MWh in June 2024 to 1.53 GWh as of June 2026, according to University of Aachen data cited by Montel. Grid-scale battery projects expanded faster still, rising from 1.8 GWh to 5.6 GWh over the same period. Germany's battery industry recorded EUR 1.3bn in revenues over that stretch.2
Europe's pipeline is broadening beyond Germany. SolarPower Europe told Montel on Tuesday (2026-06-23) that European battery storage would grow 44% in 2026, with annual installations surpassing 50 GWh for the first time, driven by utility-scale projects.3
The global build-out is more concentrated than those regional figures suggest. China and the United States together held 74.6% of global battery energy storage system capacity at end-2025, according to Asian Power, citing industry data. Global BESS capacity is projected to expand sixfold between 2025 and 2030 at a compound annual growth rate of 42%. That rate assumes the supply chain can absorb it.4
It has not. Panelists at the BloombergNEF Summit in New York in April 2026 flagged high battery pack prices, global shipping bottlenecks and supply chain constraints as factors suppressing near-term deployments despite strong developer demand, BloombergNEF reported. In California, Vistra was forced to restructure its 350 MW/1,400 MWh Moss Landing Phase III project with PG&E specifically because of battery supply uncertainty.1
BloombergNEF had already revised its U.S. deployment forecast down 29% to 5.4 GW/11.7 GWh because of those same constraints. The demand signal is not in question. The procurement pipeline is.1
Cost declines alone do not guarantee deployment at the pace that utilization projections assume. Projects still depend on grid interconnection queues, permitting timelines, and offtake structures. In emerging markets, the cost of capital remains a compounding variable: even a storage asset with dramatically lower operating costs faces a higher hurdle rate than equivalent infrastructure in developed markets, as oilprice.com noted in reporting published Saturday (2026-08-29).6
The IRENA projection sets a destination. Getting there runs through battery cell supply contracts, shipping lanes, and interconnection queues — none of which are currently expanding at 42% annually.4,1