The battery era is here — and China is supplying it

Batteries are booming worldwide, both for electric cars and for storing power on the grid, and China makes most of them. Last year, more than 1.5 terawatt-hours of batteries went into use globally, about ten times the amount in 2020. That growth has been driven largely by China scaling up production, which has pushed prices down sharply: lithium-ion batteries cost 93 percent less in 2025 than in 2010, and 36 percent less than just five years earlier.

Most of this activity happens inside China, mainly to power electric vehicles, but battery storage for the electric grid is growing even faster. Global grid-battery deployment grew nearly 19-fold between 2020 and 2025, and analysts expect it to double again by the end of the decade. That matters for homeowners because grid-scale batteries help utilities manage electricity supply, smooth out demand, and integrate more solar and wind power, which can affect electricity reliability and cost.

Other countries want a bigger share of battery manufacturing for themselves. The U.S. kept some incentives for battery manufacturing and storage in place even after rolling back other parts of the Inflation Reduction Act, and has taken steps to favor domestic batteries. The European Union wants to make 90 percent of its own batteries by 2030 but is behind schedule. Even so, neither region can easily match China's low costs, built up through years of manufacturing scale and control over the processing of battery raw materials. For now, the trend looks set to continue: more batteries everywhere, most of them made in China.