Equinor Brings Texas Battery Online as US Power Unit Narrows Losses
The 100 MW/200 MWh Citrus Flatts BESS in Harlingen came online Thursday, part of a US power expansion generating $1.58 billion in H1 2026 revenue that has yet to turn a profit.
Equinor's 100 MW/200 MWh Citrus Flatts battery energy storage facility in Harlingen, Texas went live on Thursday (2026-09-03), the Norwegian company confirmed — its second operational grid-scale battery project in the United States.3
The startup arrives as Equinor's power division is growing fast but losing money. The segment generated $1.58 billion in H1 2026 revenue, up 43% year-on-year, yet delivered an adjusted operating loss of $31 million. That is a 76% improvement from -$126 million in H1 2025, but still in the red.3
Citrus Flatts operates within ERCOT. Battery assets on the Texas grid face a distinct commercial reality: the average storage duration for online projects runs at just 1.6 hours, compared to longer averages in other states, because ERCOT's market design rewards fast-response capacity more than sustained energy delivery, according to the American Clean Power Association. At 200 MWh behind 100 MW of rated output, Citrus Flatts is a two-hour system — close to the market norm.3,2
Equinor has more battery capacity in the pipeline elsewhere. Four projects in Virginia, all inside the PJM electricity market, carry a combined capacity of 80 MW/160 MWh. PJM serves nearly 70 million consumers across 13 states and is the largest wholesale electricity market in the United States.3
But the bigger US commitment disclosed recently is not in batteries at all. On August 17 (2026-08-17), Equinor said it had agreed to buy a majority stake in the Lackawanna Energy Center in Pennsylvania — a 1,483 MW combined-cycle gas turbine plant — from Global Infrastructure Partners. Equinor described it as among the largest and most efficient gas-fired plants in PJM.3
The Lackawanna move places a large gas-burning asset in the same regional grid where Equinor is building battery storage. The company already holds a non-operated Appalachian Basin gas position delivering more than 1.7 billion cubic feet of natural gas per day into the northeastern United States — a supply chain that sits directly upstream of Lackawanna's fuel needs.3
Total net power generation across Equinor's portfolio reached 2.58 TWh in H1 2026, up 2% from a year earlier. Renewables accounted for 1.89 TWh, a 19% increase. The renewable share grew faster than the overall portfolio, yet gas remains embedded in the company's US power strategy through both the Appalachian supply position and the pending Lackawanna deal.3
The 43% revenue jump sits against a segment that has not cleared breakeven. Where the gap originates — capital costs, debt service, development spend — is not broken out in available data, and Equinor has not indicated when the power unit is expected to turn profitable.3
Sector-wide, battery supply chain pressures remain a drag. High battery pack prices and global shipping bottlenecks have slowed US deployments broadly, panelists at the BloombergNEF Summit in New York in April (2026) said. How severely those constraints affect Equinor's four pending Virginia projects is not yet clear.1
The Lackawanna acquisition has not closed. Until it does, and until the Virginia battery pipeline reaches commercial operation, Equinor's US power profile stays weighted toward a single large ERCOT battery, a non-operated gas supply asset, and an operating record that is improving but not yet profitable. The next test is whether the Lackawanna terms hold and what the gas plant contributes to a segment that has so far absorbed more capital than it has returned.3