C&I storage the ‘sleeping giant waking up’, says WoodMac

This news is mostly about the big picture of energy storage worldwide, but a couple of details touch home batteries directly. A new report from Wood Mackenzie says the global market for battery storage is growing fast, and the mix of who's buying it is shifting. On the home front, Australia has passed Germany as the world's top market for residential batteries, helped by its Cheaper Home Batteries subsidy, which has backed more than half a million installations. The US home battery market, by contrast, is shrinking this year as tax credits become harder to get.

Most of the growth, though, is happening in bigger systems: utility-scale batteries used by power companies, and a fast-growing category called commercial and industrial storage, used by businesses and factories. The report also notes that batteries are increasingly being paired with solar or wind farms rather than standing alone, especially in the US, where roughly half of new utility storage is paired with solar.

One detail worth noting for anyone watching the broader market: older storage systems are starting to reach the end of their working life. The report expects aging batteries to begin getting replaced at scale after 2030, with the US, Japan, and Germany leading that replacement wave by 2035.

For an individual homeowner, the direct takeaway is narrow: if you're considering a home battery, incentives vary a lot by country and state, and in the US, federal tax credit support for residential storage is becoming less available this year, so it's worth checking what's currently offered where you live.