Energy storage is moving from a backup resource to a foundational element of grid infrastructure. As demand climbs and aging assets strain under reliability pressure, storage is becoming essential to keeping the lights on.
Energy storage was long treated as a backup resource, deployed to smooth renewable generation or provide limited contingency support. Today, that framing is no longer sufficient. The underlying issue is dispatchability. For any generation source to function as dependable infrastructure, power must be available continuously and be adjustable to real-time demand.
Storage provides that flexibility. By decoupling generation from consumption, storage systems allow electricity to be delivered when it is needed rather than only when it is produced. This capability is increasingly valuable as grids contend with variable generation and rising peak loads while infrastructure constraints limit rapid expansion. The U.S. Department of Energy has repeatedly emphasized that energy storage plays a growing role in maintaining reliability as the grid becomes more complex and inverter-driven, as outlined in its work on energy storage and grid reliability.
Residential and commercial storage adoption has accelerated sharply in recent years. According to Sunrun, the largest residential solar installer in the United States, storage attachment rates on new systems reached record levels in 2025. A growing share of these installations now participate in virtual power plants, where aggregated home batteries provide grid services like peak shaving and frequency response.
While the total capacity of distributed storage remains smaller than utility-scale systems, its value lies in geographic dispersion. Distributed assets reduce single-point failures and can respond locally to grid stress, particularly during outages caused by weather or equipment failures. Declining battery costs and increasing outage frequency have further strengthened the case for behind-the-meter storage.
At the utility level, storage capacity has grown at an unprecedented pace. According to data tracked by the U.S. Energy Information Administration, annual additions of grid-scale battery storage have increased sharply, pushing total installed capacity into the tens of gigawatts. Despite this growth, storage still represents a small fraction of total generation capacity, underscoring both the progress made and the scale of the remaining opportunity.
Projections from the National Renewable Energy Laboratory and BloombergNEF indicate continued rapid expansion through the second half of the decade, driven by system operators seeking fast-response capacity and resilience under extreme conditions. Markets such as California and Texas are leading deployment, using storage to manage peak demand and maintain reliability during heat waves and grid stress events.
Policy and trade dynamics remain a variable. Tariffs and supply chain constraints have increased project costs in some regions, introducing uncertainty into deployment timelines. Even so, few analysts expect overall storage growth to reverse, given its expanding operational role.
Globally, energy storage deployment is accelerating across a diverse set of markets. China leads in both battery manufacturing and grid-scale storage deployment, leveraging its dominant position in lithium-ion production. Other regions, including the Middle East, Europe, Australia, and parts of Africa, have also committed to large-scale storage projects to support grid stability and energy security.
Over time, the battery landscape is expected to diversify. Electric vehicle demand has driven much of today’s lithium-ion scale, but grid storage requirements increasingly emphasize durability and cycle life over energy density. This divergence is likely to influence both chemistry choices and system design.
Beyond renewable integration, energy storage is emerging as a practical solution to broader grid challenges. Storage can buffer demand locally, reducing stress on transmission and distribution assets that are difficult and expensive to upgrade. In constrained systems, this flexibility can defer or eliminate the need for new infrastructure.
Storage also provides resilience benefits. During outages, both grid-scale and distributed systems can maintain critical loads and speed restoration. As procurement timelines for large transformers and other grid components stretch into years, storage offers a near-term way to reduce risk and improve system robustness.
As storage systems scale, material performance becomes a defining factor. Higher utilization rates and longer duty cycles place growing demands on power electronics and capacitors.
Inverter-linked storage systems rely heavily on capacitor banks for energy buffering and voltage stability. Conventional dielectric materials face limits under sustained high-temperature and high-ripple conditions, affecting lifetime and reliability.
Peak Nano develops nanolayered metamaterials designed to improve performance and durability in demanding electrical environments. Its Peak NanoPlex™ LDF film family is engineered for continuous high-temperature operation with low dissipation factor and minimal shrinkage, characteristics that align with the needs of modern inverter-based systems.
In storage applications, improved dielectric stability can extend capacitor lifetime and support higher utilization without sacrificing reliability. These benefits scale across both grid-scale and distributed storage deployments.
Equally important, Peak Nano’s technologies are designed and manufactured in the United States using allied-nation supply chains. As energy infrastructure becomes increasingly strategic, domestic materials capability supports both performance and resilience objectives.
Energy storage is no longer a peripheral technology. It is becoming a core component of grid strategy; addressing availability and resilience in ways that weren’t possible a decade ago.
As deployment accelerates, the limiting factors will extend beyond battery chemistry and project economics. System reliability will increasingly depend on the materials that enable sustained high-performance operation under real-world grid conditions.
For utilities, policymakers, and infrastructure planners, storage strategy must therefore include materials strategy. The durability, efficiency, and resilience of tomorrow’s grid will be shaped not only by how much storage is deployed, but by how well its underlying components perform over time.