This is the reality American energy storage developers now navigate, one year after the OBBBA introduced Foreign Entity of Concern (FEOC) restrictions on the 48E ITC — the section of the tax code governing clean electricity investment tax credits — for the first time. The rules apply to any project beginning construction after 31 December 2025. The guidance remains incomplete. The only reliable protection is product-level due diligence that most procurement processes aren’t built to deliver.
Batteries now carry the grid
The US energy storage market installed more than 16 gigawatts (GW) and 49 gigawatt-hours (GWh) of large-scale energy storage in 2025, a 51% increase over 2024, according to public project data aggregated by Intertek CEA. Projections call for more than 450GWh of additional grid-scale installations between 2026 and 2031 — with annual installations nearly doubling in that time frame.
That growth reflects a structural shift in how power grids work. As solar and wind supply a rising share of generation, operators increasingly must curtail — deliberately switch off — clean power that the grid cannot absorb at a given moment. Storage converts that surplus into more valuable dispatchable energy, available on demand rather than wasted.
