Energy storage projects with a total capacity of approximately 750 gigawatts are awaiting connections to the electricity grid in the United States, according to data compiled by the U.S. Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and cited by a Bloomberg report. This volume is roughly equivalent to the generating capacity of more than 700 nuclear reactors, but the projects remain in the planning stages, and the average interconnection wait reached five years in 2025.
The figure does not mean that this capacity will actually enter service. Interconnection requests represent one step in a long and complex process, and most projects do not reach the operating stage. According to the laboratory’s analysis of requests submitted between 2000 and 2020, only 13% of the requested capacity had entered service by the end of 2025, while 75% of the requests had been withdrawn entirely, and the outcome for the remainder is still under evaluation.
Storage and Solar Move Forward
The accumulation of requests comes as the utility-scale storage market expands alongside solar and wind power. Wood Mackenzie, in cooperation with the American Clean Power Association, reported that new storage capacity additions reached record levels across all sectors during the first quarter, totaling 3.3 gigawatts.
Wood Mackenzie expects the U.S. storage market to nearly quadruple over the next six years, reaching 200 gigawatts of cumulative installed capacity, or 655 gigawatt-hours, by 2031. Large-scale systems are expected to account for 85% of installed capacity between 2026 and 2031.
DeltaX Plant in Georgia
In this context, South Korean energy startup DeltaX selected the Piedmont Regional Industrial Park in Monroe, Georgia, to establish its North American manufacturing headquarters, with an investment of $141 million. The company focuses on battery energy storage system (BESS) solutions for renewable energy projects.
Georgia Governor Brian P. Kemp said DeltaX’s solutions serve utility projects, renewable energy integration, artificial intelligence data centers, commercial and industrial applications, and original equipment manufacturing customers around the world. The company’s founder and CEO, Stephen Kim, said the facility would serve as a North American manufacturing center, providing jobs and supporting demand for more reliable and sustainable energy infrastructure.
The shift toward domestic manufacturing is also linked to new compliance restrictions involving the “foreign entities of concern” (FEOC) rules, enacted as part of the U.S. tax bill known as OBBA and intended to reduce U.S. manufacturers’ dealings with China and other countries classified under these rules. According to Wood Mackenzie, this environment has prompted project developers with mature schedules and available capital to secure eligible projects and then seek long-term supply agreements with domestic storage system manufacturers.
What Is Preventing Requests from Becoming Actual Capacity?
The total volume of new generation plant and storage system projects awaiting interconnection reached approximately 2,000 gigawatts last year, down from a peak of 2,600 gigawatts in 2023. The Berkeley laboratory attributes this decline to regulatory reforms and developers withdrawing requests totaling more than 750 gigawatts. Nevertheless, withdrawal rates remain high, exceeding 40% even after an interconnection agreement has been signed, making grid planning and operation more difficult.
Storage Is Part of the Grid Reliability Equation
The challenge is not limited to adding new capacity; it also includes managing large loads, particularly data centers. Ting Labs, formerly known as Whisker Labs, pointed to an incident in which a group of data centers with a capacity of 3 gigawatts in Virginia automatically disconnected from the grid and switched to backup power following a transmission-line failure. The response of several operators prevented a widespread outage, but the company’s sensors detected voltage disturbances in an area comprising 238 million people and 100 million homes, according to the article.
This case demonstrates that storage growth alone is insufficient to address interconnection and reliability bottlenecks. The grid also needs infrastructure upgrades, real-time monitoring, and close coordination among its operators, along with rules governing how data centers respond to grid disturbances.