Battery Energy Storage System Market Growing

There are different scales of battery energy storage systems (BESS):

• Utility Scale
• Commercial & Industrial Building Scale
• Residential Scale

Utility Scale BESS

U.S. utility-scale battery storage is expanding at an enormous pace, averaging 70% annual growth over the past three years, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration’s preliminary generator inventory data. The country ended 2025 with 43.6 GW of operating battery capacity and added another 8.3 GW in the first half of 2026, bringing the total to nearly 52 GW. Developers report a further 54 GW planned through 2028—14 GW in late 2026, 26 GW in 2027, and 14 GW in 2028—which could push national capacity beyond 105 GW by the end of that year.

Image courtesy of US EIA.

Much of this growth is tied to utility-scale solar. Co-located solar-plus-storage projects can charge batteries with low- or negative-priced midday solar electricity and discharge during higher-priced peak-demand periods. Major examples include California’s 500 MW solar/500 MW BESS Bellefield project, planned to double by November 2026; Florida’s Manatee facility, with 409 MW of storage; and Nevada’s Gemini plant, pairing 690 MW of solar with 380 MW of batteries.

The storage buildout supports EIA forecasts for 70 GW of new solar capacity in 2026–27. Texas’s ERCOT market alone could grow storage from 15 GW in 2025 to 37 GW by 2027, helping reduce reliance on peaker plants and manage rising renewable generation. Additional information on rapid utility scale BESS growth is available here.

Lighting Manufacturers Offering BESS

We are at the very beginning stages of lighting manufacturers adding building scale BESS to their product lines. Here are some early examples:

Espen Technology / EspenEV (Indoor linear lighting manufacturer and EV chargers)

BESS Offering: HomeARK, CoreARK and GridARK battery-energy-storage systems. Publicly available product information is limited.

Applications / Scale: HomeARK: residential, up to 9.6 kW; CoreARK: 125 kW C&I system; GridARK: containerized 3.42 MWh utility-grade system. Espen positions the range for peak shaving, load shifting, backup power / resilience, renewable integration, microgrids, grid support, and demand response.

Sun-In-One (Solar-lighting and off-grid lighting manufacturer with broader solar-and-storage capabilities)

BESS Offering: BESS packages incorporating battery units, PCS skids/containerized storage and battery-management software.

Applications / Scale: Solutions for microgrids, offshore applications, utility projects and behind-the-meter industrial deployments. It cites common BESS configurations from 100 kW through 4.8 MW, alongside solar-lighting products and systems.

TED Lighting (LED lighting manufacturer with Energy Storage Systems)

BESS Offering: Wall-mounted LiFePO₄ battery-storage systems.

Applications / Scale: Offers systems for residential, commercial and solar-energy applications. Publicly available product information is limited.

Don’t Confuse With Solar Lighting, Emergency Lighting & Portable Lighting

For many years, there have been lighting manufacturer incorporating batteries into luminaires. These include:

• Solar lighting manufacturers that incorporate batteries into solar luminaires to store energy from solar panels (off-grid solar lighting) or from a combination of solar panels as well as a grid connection (hybrid solar lighting).
• Emergency lighting manufacturers that incorporate batteries into luminaires in order to provide code-compliant emergency battery backup lighting for building egress anytime a building looses power.
• Portable lighting manufacturers that incorporate batteries into portable luminaires that allow them to be moved easily indoors or outdoors without being hardwired or plugged into an outlet for several hours. These are often portable lanterns for resimercial use or tabletop luminaires in restaurants or bars.
• Battery-powered wireless switches are lighting control devices, not BESS.

These categories of manufacturers and products offer battery-based energy storage embedded withinluminaires or lighting controls, which is different from selling a facility-scale BESS for demand management, backup or microgrid use.

Just as a variety of lighting manufacturers now sell EV chargers in order to diversify into electrification products (LEDVANCE, Leviton, RAB Lighting, EspenEV, and Luminoso LED Lighting), expect to see more lighting manufacturers diversify into BESS products at the utility, C&I facility, and residential scales.

Top images were taken at Espen Technology’s 2025 LightFair booth.

David Shiller

David Shiller is the Publisher of LightNOW, and Senior Business Development Consultant at Capacity Consulting, a North American consulting firm providing business development services to advanced lighting manufacturers. The ALA awarded David the Pillar of the Industry Award. David has been co-chair of the ALA’s Engineering Committee since 2010. David established MaxLite’s OEM component sales into a multi-million dollar division. He invented GU24 lamps while leading ENERGY STAR lighting programs for the US EPA. David has been published in leading lighting publications, including LD+A, enLIGHTenment Magazine, LEDs Magazine, and more.

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