Just north of Boston, MA, the Trimount Battery Project is making big waves. The project is set to add 700 megawatts of power capacity and 2.8 gigawatt-hours of stored energy, the largest in New England, in a bid to support grid resilience while mitigating market pressures. Considering that Boston uses an average of 12.3 billion kWh of power annually, the Trimount Project promises an opportunity for New England electric utilities. That's why, despite legislative pushback, the U.S. added a record-breaking amount of battery energy storage in 2025: batteries are critical to meet rising demand by providing the load flexibility needed to enhance grid services.
The State of the Battery Market
As noted, U.S. battery energy storage soared in 2025, despite tariffs and other challenges that precluded further battery deployments. Altogether, the U.S. added 13 GW of energy storage across the nation in 2025, up from approximately 12 GW in 2024. For perspective, the U.S. only had around 500 MW of grid battery capacity in 2017, making for a 2500% increase in less than a decade. Globally, battery storage fared just as well, exceeding $150 billion in 2025, up more than 20% from 2024.
This growth in battery storage is driven in part by rapidly increasing electric demand, for which battery storage is better suited to help meet. According to BloombergNEF, the battery market is forecast to exceed 110 GW in grid capacity by 2030. These investments demonstrate market confidence in battery storage as a critical load-shifting expense during the energy transition.
Capital Investments & Grid Infrastructure
Each year, electric utilities invest capital expenditures (CapEx) into infrastructure investments like generation power plants, transmission lines, and substations. Over time, these investments are recovered, providing further revenue for future infrastructure investments.
Unfortunately, the cost to upgrade the U.S. power grid is expensive, with many estimates in the trillions. Furthermore, even with infrastructure investments, a lengthy grid interconnection queue can take years to clear, stalling much-needed utility-scale generation and transmission projects. These projects include utility-held distributed energy resource (DER) assets like solar and battery installations, which grid operators can aggregate and leverage for demand flexibility initiatives.
There’s Money At The Grid’s Edge
While the costs and deployment schedules for utility-scale DER assets present a long-term challenge, behind-the-meter DER assets like solar, battery energy storage systems, electric vehicles, EVSE chargers, and smart home devices like thermostats and water heaters offer a different path to load flexibility. Through the use of a Grid-Edge distributed energy resource management system (DERMS), utilities can aggregate these otherwise disparate resources for use in demand flexibility programs like virtual power plants (VPPs), demand response, and EV managed charging.
Unlike utility-scale grid investments, virtual power plants cost approximately 40-60% less than conventional power plants, at a fraction of the overall deployment time. Research indicates that scaling VPPs can help meet 20% of U.S. peak demand by 2030. This presents several unique opportunities for electric utilities to help meet rising demand through:
Solving for credit risks, while strengthening grid resilience - Utilities can apply CapEx investments to low-to-moderate income communities by offering free or discounted battery storage or solar, with the caveat that recipients participate in demand flexibility programs. This minimizes credit risks, enriches LMI communities, and creates opportunities for load flexibility.
Strengthening the grid - Battery investments are so high because they provide a reliable and calculable opportunity for grid operators. Through aggregate load shifting, utilities can help conserve during peak periods of usage, in turn lowering operational costs.
Energy arbitrage - Battery energy storage systems (BESS) are incredibly useful in energy arbitrage strategies by providing a lower cost alternative via stored energy to peak demand energy market costs.
For some grid operators, BTM DERs are impractical due to the variable nature of third-party-owned DER assets. Fortunately, software solutions like Topline Demand Control (TDC) provide relief for grid operators by ensuring a reliable outcome, creating a clear path for a comprehensive strategy for both front-of and BTM DERs.
How Operationalizing DERs Changes The Game
Topline Demand Control (TDC) combines AI, model predictive control, forecasting software, and the Shift Grid-Edge DERMS to optimize DERs at a granular level. The idea at the core of TDC? To make demand as reliable as a gas turbine. To do that, grid operators need reliable access to all DERs, including the BTM DERs that are proliferating in places like residential, commercial, and industrial properties.
With BTM DER reliability, utilities can:
Create a comprehensive strategy involving Grid and Grid-Edge DERMS, leveraging all available resources.
Decrease peak energy market spending, while enhancing energy security.
Batteries & Demand Flexibility
Last January, the U.S. was rocked by severe winter weather, causing spikes in winter demand to meet heating needs. In Texas, ERCOT leveraged solar and battery energy storage systems (BESS) to avert disaster and keep the lights on and the costs affordable. As such, batteries play a crucial role in load management by providing dependable energy resources during periods of peak demand usage.
Reliable Load Shifting
When deployed as part of a virtual power plant (VPP), battery energy storage systems (BESS) can repower the grid during peak demand events. For example, on days with temperature extremes, utilities can access stored battery power to offset demand by flexibly dispatching that energy accordingly. Likewise, when used with demand response, program managers can differ charging periods, curtailing battery charging to off-peak periods of usage. Because batteries are a fixed system, program managers and grid operators alike can rest assured that in a reliable and guaranteed outcome.
Manage Rising Market Costs Through Energy Arbitrage
In many areas, utilities work to decrease peak load not only to enhance grid resiliency but to mitigate expensive peak energy market purchases. As such, battery energy storage systems (BESS) are an ideal grid services tool to minimize costly energy purchases by instead utilizing energy generated and stored at a lower rate. In combination with forecasting software, this helps utilities minimize everything from peak energy market costs during grid events to power purchasing agreements.
BTM Battery ROI: Enhancing Grid Services By Betting On Community: Conclusion
The battery market is booming and for good reason: batteries provide a stable and dependable resource to grid planners, operators, and program managers alike. In 2025 alone, many U.S. states offered battery incentive programs, ranging from billing credits or rebates to providing customers with free batteries for use in grid resiliency programs.
Battery energy storage systems (BESS) are so effective that entire countries rely on batteries to persevere through extreme weather events and other threats to their national grid. More so, investor sentiment speaks clearly: batteries are a valuable investment, both short-term and long-term, and play a critical role in load flexibility during the energy transition.