Energy storage projects with a combined capacity of nearly 750 GW are waiting to obtain 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 in a report by Bloomberg. This volume is roughly equivalent to the generating capacity of more than 700 nuclear reactors, but the projects are still in the planning stages, and the average connection 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 operation. 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and 2020, only 13% of the requested capacity had entered service by the end of 2025, while 75% of the requests had been withdrawn in full; the outcome of the remaining portion is still under evaluation.
Storage and solar power advance
The accumulation of requests comes at a time when the utility-scale storage market is expanding alongside solar and wind power. Wood Mackenzie, in cooperation with the American Clean Power Association, reported that additions of new storage capacity reached record levels across all sectors during the first quarter, totaling 3.3 GW.
Wood Mackenzie expects the U.S. storage market to nearly quadruple over the next six years, reaching 200 GW of cumulative installed capacity, or 655 GWh, by 2031. Utility-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 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 aimed at renewable energy projects.
Georgia Governor Brian P. Kemp said that 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 operate as a North American manufacturing hub, providing jobs and supporting demand for more reliable and sustainable energy infrastructure.
The move toward domestic manufacturing is also linked to new compliance restrictions under the rules concerning “foreign entities of concern” (FEOC), enacted as part of the U.S. tax bill known as OBBA and intended to reduce the dealings of U.S. manufacturers with China and other countries classified under these rules. According to Wood Mackenzie, this environment has prompted project developers with mature timelines 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 power plant and storage system projects awaiting interconnection reached approximately 2,000 GW last year, down from a peak of 2,600 GW in 2023. The Berkeley laboratory attributes this decline to regulatory reforms and the withdrawal by developers of requests totaling more than 750 GW. Nevertheless, withdrawal rates remain high, exceeding 40% even after an interconnection agreement has been signed, making grid planning and operation more difficult.
Storage as 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 GW in Virginia automatically disconnected from the grid and switched to backup power after a transmission line failure. The response of several operators prevented a widespread outage, but the company’s sensors detected voltage disturbances in an area encompassing 238 million people and 100 million homes, according to the material.
This case shows that storage growth alone is not enough to address interconnection and reliability bottlenecks; the grid also needs infrastructure upgrades, real-time monitoring, and close coordination among its operators, along with rules defining how data centers should respond to grid disturbances.