U.S. Battery-Power Kickoffs Hit $3.2 Billion in September

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Written by Jesse Broehl, Editor-in-Chief, Breaking Energy News (BEN), IIR Intelligence, (Sugar Land, Texas)

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Summary

Eleven standalone BESS projects were scheduled to break ground across the U.S. in September, representing $3.28 billion in combined investment and 2,236 MW of capacity.

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BESS Ranks Third Among Power Plant Types for September

Sixty power generation projects in the U.S. are scheduled to break ground this September, representing a total investment value (TIV) of $16.8 billion and roughly 18,083 megawatts (MW) of capacity across 10 fuel categories. Standalone battery energy-storage systems (BESS) rank third among power plant types this month for total investment, and it trails only solar in project count. Rarely built a decade ago, BESS plants are a rapidly growing market.

According to Industrial Info Resources data, 11 standalone BESS projects are scheduled to break ground across the U.S. in September, representing $3.28 billion in combined investment and 2,236 MW of capacity. This story focuses on project starts in the BESS sector for September.

For a look at all generation types of plants kicking off, see this accompanying overview news story by IIR Energy. Solar focus is here and natural gas here. See this data compilation for the full list of projects, all generation sources for September.

Multiple Enabling Factors Drive Fast-Growing BESS Market

BESS's success is driven by multiple factors: battery costs have drastically fallen, making the plants more cost-effective to build. According to BloombergNEF's annual Lithium-Ion Battery Price Survey, overall, battery pack prices have fallen 93% since 2010 -- from roughly $1,436 to $1,474 per kWh (in real 2025 dollars, per BNEF's own inflation-adjusted figures) down to $108 per kWh in 2025.

Policy also has been a key factor. The 2022 Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) provided for the first time tax credits for standalone BESS, which before had been limited to co-located with solar. After U.S. elections in the fall of 2024 ushered in a second Trump Administration and full Republican control of Congress, wind and solar tax credits were phased out while the credits for BESS were left intact.

Eleven Battery Storage Projects, 2,236 MW of Capacity

Texas hosts the largest project (the 1,043-MW Zeus Armstrong BESS), while California and New Mexico each host multiple smaller projects. Minnesota, Indiana and Michigan each have one project. Every one of the 11 projects is new construction; as with solar, there is no refurbishment or life-extension activity in this category, consistent with battery storage being a fundamentally newer technology at utility scale.

Ownership skews heavily nonutility, similar to solar: Nine of the 11 projects, representing $2.91 billion, are developed by nonutility/IPP entities. Only two projects are utility-owned--and, notably, both belong to the same company, Xcel Energy.

Some notable projects and ownership or offtake structure include:

Zeus Armstrong BESS Unit Addition (Claude, TX): At 1,043 MW and $1.57 billion, this is the largest battery-storage project in the September pipeline, and the largest planned standalone battery project in Texas overall, according to third-party interconnection-queue tracking. The project, developed by Zeus Renewable Energy Development, sits in Armstrong County, Texas -- the same county as this month's Claude Armstrong Phase I solar project profiled in IIR Energy's accompanying solar coverage for September planned starts. Armstrong County is also home to a major Crusoe Energy AI data center campus with Google as an anchor tenant, part of Google's broader $40 billion Texas AI infrastructure buildout.

Becker Sherco BESS (Clear Lake Township, MN) and Shakopee Blue Lake BESS (Shakopee, MN): These two projects, together worth $549 million, are both pieces of a single, coordinated Xcel Energy clean-energy transition plan. Xcel filed a proposal with Minnesota regulators in October 2025 to double battery storage capacity at its retiring Sherco coal plant in Becker to 600 MW -- Minnesota's largest power plant, scheduled for full coal retirement by the end of 2030 -- while separately adding 135.5 MW of storage at its Blue Lake facility in Shakopee. Both projects reuse existing grid interconnections from the coal and gas infrastructure already on site.

The following charts show all 11 projects in two charts, ranked by TIV value and by MW installed capacity. See this data compilation for the full list of all projects, all generation sources for September.

Source: IIR Energy

Key Takeaways

• Standalone battery energy storage (BESS) ranks third among power plant types this month for total investment level.
• Eleven standalone BESS projects are scheduled to break ground across the U.S. in September, representing $3.28 billion in combined investment and 2,236 MW of capacity.
• The reason for BESS's success is driven by multiple enabling factors: Costs have fallen 93% since 2010. Tax credits for BESS were added in 2022. When wind and solar tax credits were phased out by Congress in 2025, the credits for BESS were left intact.
• Texas hosts the single-largest project (the 1,043-MW Zeus Armstrong BESS), while California and New Mexico each host multiple smaller projects. Minnesota, Indiana, and Michigan each have one project.

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About Industrial Info Resources
Industrial Info Resources (IIR) is the leading provider of industrial market intelligence. Since 1983, IIR has provided comprehensive research, news, and analysis on the industrial process, manufacturing, and energy-related industries. IIR's Global Market Intelligence (GMI) helps companies identify and pursue trends across multiple markets with access to real, qualified, and verified plant and project opportunities. Across the world, Industrial Info Resources is tracking over 250,000 current and future projects worth $30.2 trillion (USD).