Bruce Saller, ADVANCE CONTRIBUTOR
Large-scale battery storage facilities have been installed around the U.S. at a 70 percent annual growth rate since 2021. During the first half of 2026, 8.3 billion watts of battery storage were added. Besides providing backup power to solar and wind generation, batteries help stabilize the electric grid. A generator’s ramp rate measures how fast it can increase or decrease its power output. The ramp rate is measured in either millions of watts per minute, or percentage change per minute. Nuclear plants have the lowest ramp rate (1-3 percent), followed by coal (2-6 percent), natural gas (8-10 percent) and battery storage (100 percent).
The recent Dominion transmission-line fault resulted in a 3-billion-watt power reduction by data centers, causing significant voltage fluctuations in the eastern U.S. Data centers will continue to cause significant power swings as they switch their loads on and off for testing, peak demand reduction. and other reasons. So, adding battery storage to the grid will greatly reduce the voltage fluctuations.
A less expensive alternative to using new batteries for storage is to repurpose used electrical-vehicle batteries. Battery capacity decreases about 1-3 percent a year for the average driver, and batteries are typically replaced after 15 years of use. At that point they still have 70-80 percent of their capacity left, and can be used in battery storage facilities for another 15 years before going off to be recycled.
Several companies in the U.S. are now modifying these batteries to be used in storage systems. Building a storage system with used batteries costs 30-50 percent less than using new batteries, and also has a much smaller environmental impact.
Utilities plan to install another 54 billion watts of battery storage by the end of 2028, so there will continue to be large demand for used electric vehicle batteries.
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Bruce Saller is a retired systems engineer with degrees in electrical engineering and computer science.
