The battery era is here — and China is supplying it

See more from Canary Media’s ​“Chart of the Week” column.

Batteries are taking center stage in the energy world.

Battery deployment, both to power electric vehicles and to store electricity for the grid, has skyrocketed in recent years. Last year, more than 1.5 terawatt-hours of batteries were placed into service around the world — about 10 times more than the total in 2020, per a recent International Energy Agency analysis.

It’s astounding growth, made possible in large part because China has scaled up the manufacturing of the tech and driven the price down as a consequence. Lithium-ion batteries in 2025 were 93% cheaper than they were in 2010 and a respectable 36% cheaper than they were even five years earlier, in 2020.

Most of these batteries are deployed within China, and most are used to power electric vehicles. But grid storage is growing particularly fast: Globally, annual deployments grew by a factor of nearly 19 between 2020 and 2025. The trend isn’t stopping; energy research firm BloombergNEF thinks annual deployments will double by the end of the decade.

The fact that China makes such a large percentage of the batteries that increasingly power the cars and grids of the world makes certain governments nervous.

The Inflation Reduction Act tried to mitigate those concerns in the U.S. by incentivizing companies to ramp up home-grown manufacturing, and the domestic batterymaking sector has since begun to flourish. Despite gutting much of that Biden-era climate law, President Donald Trump left incentives for most cleantech manufacturing and for grid storage deployment in place while also making a rash of protectionist moves that could push developers harder toward domestic batteries.

The European Union, perennially concerned about energy security, also wants to shore up its local battery production. It aims to meet 90% of its own domestic battery needs by 2030, but is not on track to hit that target.

Still, it’s hard for either region to compete on price, even with incentives in place. China’s economies of scale — and its accumulated know-how — are potent forces. Plus, the nation plays an outsized role in refining and processing the minerals needed to make batteries.

With that in mind expect two things to remain true: Global battery adoption will keep growing — and China will keep making most of those batteries.