Rapid declines in battery costs are transforming the economics of renewable power, a new report by the International Renewable Energy Agency (Irena) asserts, adding that the co-location of batteries with new utility-scale solar PV is emerging as the default configuration.
In 2025, battery costs fell faster than those of any other energy technology, with Irena estimating the installed cost of a four-hour utility-scale battery at $140/kWh – a decrease of close to 30% in a single year and around 95% since 2010.
Global battery deployments rose strongly to between 108 GW and 112 GW last year, representing a 40% to 48% year-on-year increase, with falling battery costs driving the rapid growth of hybrid solar-plus-storage systems.
“As storage has become more affordable, solar and wind projects are increasingly being paired with battery energy storage systems,” the 'Renewable Power Generation Costs in 2025' report states.
About one-quarter of all utility-scale solar PV commissioned globally in 2025 had been paired with battery storage, which Irena calculates to be a roughly sixfold rise in the share of co-location since 2020.
