Beijing and Delhi are overseeing massive capital and resource infusions into battery storage that are transforming the entire industry. Battery energy storage systems or “BESS” – capable of capturing electrical energy in rechargeable batteries to service the grid on demand – have become an integral part of the global energy system.
Their currency has risen in near step with the rise of renewable energy sources like wind and solar that require back-up systems to address intermittency issues. Successive assessments by the International Energy Agency indicate that battery storage in the power sector happens to be among the fastest growing energy technologies around.
This global BESS deployment is led by the world’s leading 20 economies, but two of Asia’s economic powerhouses – China and India – appear to be in a league of their own.
Tenfold growth and then some
If data from various sources, including the IEA, Bloomberg NEF, and Ember, is aggregated, China’s installed BESS capacity has risen from 12.5 GW to 155 GW between 2021 and the first quarter of 2026. That represents more than a tenfold increase in just five years.
For India, the growth trajectory may appear negligible, rising from 0.1 GW a decade ago to just over 0.5 GW of commissioned grid-scale capacity by the fourth quarter of 2025, according to the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis. However, in its case – the market dynamic is not about where it currently is, but rather where it’s imminently heading to.
And ‘tenfold’ growth delivery over a different time scale very much seems to be the order of the day for India as well. For the country’s BESS industry, a clear catalyst happens to be its pledge to increase its renewable energy capacity to 500 GW by 2030.
In order enable this, India’s 14th National Electricity Plan outlines aspirations of having 47 GW to 50 GW BESS capacity range, with the lower end of that range equating to around 236 GWh for its power sector.
What is making things interesting is how market participants have responded to the target. Government data suggests nearly 100 GWh of BESS projects are already in the pipeline. They include three major drives by Tata Power, Adani Energy Solutions, and JSW Energy – Fluence. Additionally, 69 new BESS tenders were floated in 2025 totalling just over another 100 GWh – a 35% increase over 2024.
India is also attempting to diversify the make-up of its battery storage portfolio. A clear example of this is Reliance New Energy’s first utility-scale non-lithium storage system in Gujarat state. It is based on a vanadium flow battery that offers a chance for diversification beyond a typical lithium-ion battery set-up.
Recognising challenges the Indian BESS industry faces in terms of lithium-ion battery manufacturing, the government’s latest budget also made customs duty exemptions to stabilise supply chains and accelerate domestic production capacity.
China’s dominance
For its part, China – a battery manufacturing powerhouse – has no such supply chain issues. It dominates global lithium battery production accounting for two-thirds of it. This relative strength gives it the confidence to relentlessly amplify its BESS footprint as evidenced in the capacity build-up between 2021 and 2026.
In fact, China’s battery storage build-out has no global parallel thanks to this one factor alone, according to Ember. It estimates that nearly all (i.e.149.8 GW) of China’s “new energy storage” consists of lithium-ion batteries.
In terms of the future, following a June update to its 15th Five-Year Plan, China is now aiming to deploy 300 GW of new energy storage by 2030. That would keep the country’s BESS industry progression, that outgrows all other countries combined, firmly on track.
This exponential BESS new-build and bolstering of existing energy storage infrastructure is being led by China’s global household names. They include eight of the top ten global BESS integrators like Sungrow and BYD. They routinely secure top spots worldwide alongside Elon Musk’s Tesla.
Potential market growth worth billions
Both China and India will likely prove vital in terms of potential market growth to the end of this decade, as they pivot from BESS scale-ups to utilisation backed by policy initiatives.
Commenting on the projections and the progress of BESS development in India, a spokesperson for the country’s Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation said: “The sustained growth reflects India's strategic focus on strengthening the nation’s grid reliability and enabling higher renewable energy integration.”
China’s latest five-year plan is similarly upbeat on its prospects and global leadership on BESS. The global market is currently valued in the range of $60 billion to $75 billion. McKinsey & Co. expects the market size to double to around $120 billion to $150 billion by 2030.
Meanwhile, the IEA projects that were Net Zero Emissions by 2050 scenarios or “NZE Scenarios” of major economies to materialise as planned, the headline BESS market valuation could potentially be four times over current projections to the end of the current decade. That sounds plausible given the scale of developments in China and India alone, let alone elsewhere in the G20.
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