The Duck Curve#batteries
BMW opens Irlbach-Straßkirchen plant to assemble Neue Klasse batteries
BMW Group opened its around €1 billion Irlbach-Straßkirchen plant in Bavaria on October 1, 2026, starting two-shift series production of sixth-generation high-voltage batteries for the new BMW i3 built in Munich. The plant assembles packs from cells BMW says come from leading cell manufacturers, which the release does not name; at full operation it expects around 1,600 employees and several hundred batteries a day on two lines, with no GWh capacity given.
Germany's MiSpeL rules let home batteries mix grid and solar power
Germany's Bundesnetzagentur adopted the MiSpeL determination on October 1, 2026, letting batteries and bidirectional EV charge points store grid power alongside solar while keeping the EEG market premium on the solar share and levy relief on stored grid power. The premium requires direct marketing, the flat-rate option for arrays up to 30 kWp awaits EU state-aid approval, and until September 30, 2027 use needs grid and meter operator consent.
Berkeley Lab: batteries paired with 37% of new US home solar in 2025
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory's U.S. Distributed Solar and Storage: 2026 Data Update, published in August 2026, finds batteries were paired with 37% of new US residential solar systems in 2025, up from 25% in 2024: 74% in California (from 58%) and 17% in all other states combined (from 7%). Median residential battery capacity held at 13.5 kWh while median discharge capacity rose from 6.0 kW to 11.4 kW, which the lab attributes to Tesla's Powerwall 3. The rates exclude batteries added to existing systems and stand-alone storage.
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Tesla Q3 2026: 486,532 deliveries, 13.7 GWh of storage, no Semi figure
Tesla said on October 2, 2026 that it delivered 486,532 vehicles, 478,237 of them Model 3/Y, produced 464,391 and deployed 13.7 GWh of energy storage in the third quarter of 2026, against 12.5 GWh in Q3 2025. By The Duck Curve's arithmetic deliveries were down 2.1% from Q3 2025, which Tesla's October 2, 2025 release called a record for both deliveries and deployments; the release gives no figure for the Semi, a truck The Verge describes as in volume production as of April 2026, and scopes its vehicle production and delivery numbers to passenger vehicles sold to customers.
Ultium Cells to make LMR prismatic EV cells at Spring Hill, Tennessee
Ultium Cells, the GM and LG Energy Solution joint venture, said in a September 28, 2026 release that it will upgrade its Spring Hill, Tennessee plant to make LMR prismatic cells for future GM EVs: modifications begin in 2026, completion is expected in 2028, 500 projected jobs join 1,200 employees, and combined investment with the plant's LFP storage-cell program and facility improvements will reach $1B by 2030. It expects Spring Hill to be first in the world to mass produce prismatic LMR cells, with the potential, it says, for 33% higher energy density than LFP at comparable cost.
Newsom signs SB 913, a 2028 deadline to count aggregations as grid capacity
Governor Gavin Newsom approved SB 913 on September 30, 2026, and the Secretary of State chaptered it the same day as Chapter 987, Statutes of 2026. The law adds Section 380.1 to the Public Utilities Code: by June 30, 2028, the California Public Utilities Commission, with the California Energy Commission and the Independent System Operator, must enhance existing market-integrated pathways for aggregated distributed energy resources to qualify as resource adequacy capacity. The digest key records no appropriation.
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La Verne council ratifies local emergency over MWD battery fire
The La Verne City Council voted unanimously on September 29, 2026 to approve a local emergency over the September 22 fire at the Metropolitan Water District's Weymouth plant, CBS Los Angeles reported; the resolution ratifies the city manager's September 25 proclamation, continuing it until the council ends it, at the earliest possible date that conditions warrant. The city manager's incident-update report says the cause investigation is ongoing and expected to be lengthy and thorough; the city's bulletin at 8:30 PM September 29 says the modules remain isolated and prepared for removal.
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Northland's 80 MW Jurassic battery reaches commercial operation in Alberta
Northland Power said on September 29, 2026 that its 80 MW / 160 MWh Jurassic battery in Cypress County, Alberta has achieved commercial operations, calling it Alberta's largest battery storage facility, delivered ahead of schedule and under budget with a 15-year offtake agreement covering 100% of its capacity. The release names no cost or counterparty; Northland's April 9, 2025 financial-close release put the project cost at approximately $120 million. AESO registered the asset as Raptor Battery (RPT2), an 80 MW energy storage resource connecting effective April 24, 2026.
Australia added 276,011 batteries and 1,894 MW of rooftop solar in H1 2026
The Clean Energy Council said on September 29, 2026 that 180,878 rooftop solar systems (1,894 MW) and 276,011 batteries were installed in Australia in the first half of 2026, counted from applications to the Clean Energy Regulator including some still under review; solar installations rose 35 per cent on the first half of 2025, batteries 52 per cent on the preceding six months, and the Cheaper Home Batteries Program's first twelve months reached 457,439 batteries and 12.9 GWh.
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LG Energy Solution to give B2U battery priority as both explore US storage
LG Energy Solution said in a September 22, 2026 release that its agreement with B2U Storage Solutions will give B2U priority access to battery capacity and let the partners explore opportunities in the US battery energy storage market, with B2U's patented technologies repurposing LG Energy Solution batteries for grid-scale storage aimed at buyers including utilities, energy storage developers and data centers. Beyond an aim of "gigawatt-hours", the partnership terms give no volume, price, site or date; B2U said on September 9, 2026 it operates roughly 100 MWh using repurposed EV batteries.
Newsom signs AB 1738, a remote-inspection option for heat pumps and solar
Governor Gavin Newsom signed AB 1738 on September 18, 2026, adding Section 17970.9 to the Health and Safety Code: cities and counties must offer homeowners, or contractors who give the city or county the homeowner's written consent, a remote-inspection option for heat pump water heaters, heat pump HVAC, reroofs, solar of 15 kW AC or less, energy storage systems, and smoke and CO detectors by January 1, 2028, or July 1, 2028 for cities of 50,000 or fewer; cities under 5,000 and counties under 150,000, with their cities, are exempt. SB 222 was still unsigned on September 27.
Sunrun to supply solar and batteries for SPAN's XFRA nodes in Texas homes
Sunrun and SPAN said on September 23, 2026 that Sunrun will provide home solar and battery storage to help power SPAN's XFRA distributed data center nodes, starting in Texas new-construction communities and other unnamed markets; each host home gets a smart panel, batteries and solar through a pre-paid lease and hosting compensation, at no cost to the builder or buyer. The release names no node count, price or compute buyer; SPAN's xfra.ai page specs each node at 16 NVIDIA GPUs with a 15 kWh battery and says it is on a first 100-home proof of concept and plans to expand more broadly in 2027.
La Verne lifts evacuations after battery fire at MWD's Weymouth plant
The City of La Verne said on September 25, 2026 that all evacuation orders from the September 22 lithium battery explosion and fire at the Metropolitan Water District's Weymouth Water Treatment Plant had been lifted after crews removed the modules overnight. The city says two 250-kilowatt units serving a solar farm were involved, one burned and the second overheated; its September 25 summaries put air monitoring in the normal range; the packs are expected off site within 3 to 5 days of September 25, pending materials; MWD then leads the investigation; the City Council meets September 29.
NineDot cuts ribbon on Bronx site it says will deliver nearly 20 MW
NineDot Energy said in a September 24, 2026 release that it cut the ribbon the previous day on a Hunts Point, Bronx battery storage site it calls its largest, which it says will be fully operational for summer 2027 and deliver nearly 20 MW to the local community, enough by its account for nearly 20,000 homes during peak grid hours. NineDot's projects page, read September 25, 2026, lists the site as under construction; NYSERDA's incentive dataset, as of September 4, 2026, carries four approved Retail Storage applications on Casanova Street totalling 19,584 kW AC and 78,336 kWh by our addition.
Geely says new station peaks at 2,250 kW, test cars took 4.5 minutes to 70%
Geely Auto Group said on September 23, 2026 it introduced Geely Smart Charging, an AI-managed charging system, alongside a fifth-generation Geely Smart Charging Station it says delivers peak charging power of up to 2,250 kW. In tests it calls real-world, the battery used in the Lynk & Co 10 and Zeekr 001 charged from 10% to 70% in 4 minutes 30 seconds and from 10% to 97% in 8 minutes 40 seconds. The release names no pack capacity, test temperature or price; CnEVPost puts BYD's flash charger at a maximum of 1,500 kW per connector and its network at 11,586 stations in China as of September 24.
NVIDIA opens DSX Ready battery qualification for AI factories, names three
NVIDIA said on September 21, 2026 that it is introducing DSX Ready, a qualification program for partner products that meet applicable NVIDIA DSX AI factory reference design requirements, starting with batteries and cooling units. At launch it lists qualified BESS solutions from Hitachi Energy, LG Energy Solution and Tesla. Its BESS self-qualification guideline sets the boundary at the AC terminals and defines twelve partner-run tests, including ride-through, black start and AI load buffering, that NVIDIA reviews and approves; the guideline says passing does not imply site-level stability.
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Energy Vault buys Goshe's 15 US battery development projects, over 2.3 GW
Energy Vault Holdings said on September 22, 2026 it acquired approximately 2.3+ GW of US battery storage development projects from Goshe Energy Storage; no price was given. Two anchor projects of 150 MW and 200 MW, which the release calls ready to build, are expected online in Q1 2028 with about $30 million of combined annual run-rate EBITDA. Energy Vault says it secured an up-to-$40 million S2G facility while the release's forward-looking statements refer to transferring Goshe's existing S2G facility; it says Goshe's leadership and development professionals are joining.
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Sunrun and Tesla put the September 9 home-battery dispatch at over 580 MW
Sunrun and Tesla said on September 21, 2026 that their home battery fleets dispatched more than 580 MW of peak power to California's grid for three hours on the evening of September 9, 2026: 517 MW from Tesla Powerwalls, 110,000 of which participated (55% Sunrun-owned), and 63 MW from what the release calls additional batteries; Sunrun separately dispatched more than 30,000 customer batteries from other manufacturers. The release ties the event to the CEC's DSGS price trigger and a PG&E call under the CPUC's ELRP, and calls it the largest distributed power plant dispatch event on record.
Massachusetts awards over $40M for storage at schools, housing and a resort
The Massachusetts Department of Energy Resources said on September 18, 2026 that its Advancing Massachusetts Power grant program awarded funding to 36 projects: 28 planned resilience batteries at schools, housing and other critical facilities, which DOER says will add roughly 10 megawatts, or 44 megawatt hours; six safety and education grants; and two planned long-duration projects, a 4 MW / 80 MWh Inlyte sodium-iron chloride battery at Berkshire East in Charlemont and a 0.24 MW / 2.4 MWh Eos zinc battery at an apartment complex in Medford. The listed awards sum to $40,315,189.
First six Megapacks installed at Hawaiian Electric's 40 MW Waena battery
Hawaiian Electric said on September 21, 2026 that the first six of 54 Tesla Megapacks are installed at its Waena Battery Energy Storage System on Maui, a 40 MW / 160 MWh system it says will be the island's first standalone load-shifting battery and expects in service in 2027; HEI's June 30, 2026 quarterly report lists a guaranteed commercial operation date of November 30, 2026. Final PUC approval came December 22, 2023 in Docket 2020-0132, per the utility's development-team page; HEI's filings put the approved estimate at $82.1 million against $60.0 million in the 2020 application.
Morgan Stanley's 1GT leads €49M Series E for Amber Electric
Amber Electric said on September 21, 2026 it closed a nearly twice oversubscribed Series E led by 1GT, which Amber calls Morgan Stanley's climate tech fund and Morgan Stanley Investment Management calls its private climate equity strategy, with existing backers ETF Partners, Innovation Victoria and E.ON participating, to scale in Australia and expand across Europe. Amber puts the round at $78.5 million with no currency named; Morgan Stanley's release states €49 million (about US$56.3 million). Amber says it orchestrates more than half of Australia's automated home batteries.
Newsom signs six EV bills on charger permits, fees, and battery labels
Governor Gavin Newsom's office said on September 20, 2026 that he signed SB 969, SB 1283, AB 1820, SB 1213, SB 1267, and SB 615. Per the Legislative Counsel's digests, SB 1283 extends California's expedited charger permitting to supporting infrastructure; AB 1820 caps Level 2 charger permit fees at multifamily housing from July 1, 2027 (January 1, 2028 in jurisdictions under 200,000 residents); SB 615 requires a permanent label on new vehicle traction batteries from July 1, 2028. As of September 20 each bill's history page still ended at "Enrolled and presented to the Governor."
Minnesota PUC finds co-op's threat to disconnect Upper Sioux solar unlawful
The Minnesota Public Utilities Commission determined on September 17, 2026 that Minnesota Valley Cooperative Light & Power Association is acting unlawfully and unreasonably when it threatens to disconnect the Upper Sioux Community over its behind-the-meter solar and battery project, and required the co-op to keep serving the community as long as the project operates behind the meter and safely. The West Central Tribune reports a unanimous vote, a 2.5 MW array with battery storage, and that the co-op's attorney said it would appeal any such order.
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Vistra reports new fire in Moss Landing 300 building's unburned batteries
Vistra says its personnel identified a flare-up at about 6 a.m. Pacific time on September 18, 2026 along the north wall of the Moss Landing 300 building, the building at its Moss Landing, California site that burned in January 2025. In a later, undated update the company says county officials report the fire inactive at this time, and that it believes about 1,200 of the roughly 5,000 unburned, still-charged modules inside ignited. CalMatters reported that Monterey County officials issued a shelter-in-place order and local authorities lifted it that afternoon.
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Virgin Islands VPP discharges at 800 kW and 500 kW in two half-hour tests
The Virgin Islands Energy Office said on September 16, 2026 that its Tesla-operated VIBES-2.0 virtual power plant ran two half-hour tests on September 11: 190 residential batteries on St. Thomas and St. John discharged at approximately 800 kW and 108 on St. Croix at approximately 500 kW, and VIEO put the combined total at 2.5 MWh without saying how it was measured. It has paid out over $176,000 in participation incentives; its Terms and Conditions set a $500 per battery enrollment incentive and a $500 per battery annual participation incentive, each capped at $2,000 per participant.
Alstom signs over €1.2bn of contracts for 29 TransPennine battery trains
Alstom said on September 11, 2026 that it signed contracts worth more than €1.2 billion with TransPennine Express for 29 battery-electric trains plus maintenance, depot provision and charging infrastructure; the trains are to be built at Derby Litchurch Lane Works from 2028, per Alstom's expected start, and delivered from 2032. TransPennine Express and the Department for Transport put it at £1 billion. Alstom will install charging at Hull, Scarborough and Saltburn; Rock Rail funds the trains, replacing part of the Class 185 fleet. None of the four releases gives battery capacity or range.
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Tesla says about 69,000 California homes sent over 500 MW to the grid
Tesla Energy said on X on September 9, 2026 that about 69,000 Powerwall owners across California were dispatching more than 500 MW to the grid during that day's heatwave. The attached screenshot of Tesla's California Virtual Power Plant dashboard showed 105,009 homes in California VPPs, 68,887 homes in a VPP event, and 507 MW of battery power discharging. The dashboard credits Tesla VPPs with the majority of a July 2025 event that delivered over 500 MW, which a Brattle Group report commissioned by Sunrun and Tesla Energy measured as an average 539 MW net-load reduction in a test event.
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Tesla says Cybertruck Powershare now backs up homes with a Powerwall 3
Tesla's official Cybertruck account said on X on September 10, 2026 that a Cybertruck and a Powerwall 3 can now power a house together, which it says extends home backup by over 3 days, equivalent to 9 additional Powerwalls. Tesla had told owners in October 2024 the Powerwall pairing would be enabled in 2025, and a December 2025 email to customers, published by Drive Tesla, rescheduled it to mid-2026. Electrek puts the truck's pack at 123 kWh and says Powershare delivers up to 11.5 kW to the home, the maximum shown on the post's app screen.
ENGIE's storage fleet reaches 10.7 GW operating or under construction
ENGIE said on September 4, 2026 that its storage portfolio in operation and under construction has reached 10.7 GW worldwide, counting batteries and pumped-storage hydropower, with 4.7 GW in Europe and 4.4 GW in the United States. July and August 2026 added 1.1 GW / 3.3 GWh of European battery projects across seven countries, led by a 758 MW / 2,156 MWh Polish portfolio assembled through two acquisitions and one adjacent development, scheduled for commissioning in 2028 and 2029.
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Bruegel: Europe's EVs hold 600 GWh, about ten times its stationary storage
Bruegel's European Clean Tech Atlas, published September 2, 2026, says 60 GWh of stationary battery storage had been connected to the European grid by 2024 and estimates 600 GWh of capacity in the EV fleet. Assuming away physical constraints, it says the stationary fleet could absorb or supply the grid's average output for about a quarter of an hour, and the vehicles, if all connected, hypothetically for almost two hours; SolarPower Europe's June 2026 outlook says 2025's additions took operational stationary capacity beyond 100 GWh.