Tell your state leaders to accelerate grid-scale battery build-out!

California is seeing spectacular success in transitioning its state grid to run on clean energy backed up with battery storage!

California’s electricity generation from solar has nearly doubled since 2022 and increased by 17% year-on-year in the first eight months of 2025, while fossil gas declined by 17% year-on-year over the same period.

The U.S. EIA reports that in January through August 2025 across California, solar power provided 40.3 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity generation, up from just 22 billion in 2020, while fossil gas provided 45.5 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity generation, down from 63.5 billion in 2021. When you add in hydro, nuclear, and wind, clean energy already provides a clear majority of California’s electricity.

The California Independent System Operator, which serves 80% of the Golden State grid, has met demand with 100% clean electricity for nearly six hours every day in 2025 so far.

In November 2025, California stopped receiving electricity from the Intermountain coal plant in Utah, completely ending use of coal for power in the state.

The California solar surge is able to provide consistent, reliable 24/7 power thanks to more and more grid-scale batteries arbitraging electrons across time. California’s statewide battery fleet reached 16,942 megawatts of capacity in November 2025, up by 2,100% from a mere 771 MW in 2019 and still growing fast. 13,880 MW of that is from grid-scale batteries, and the rest is from behind-the-meter batteries in homes, businesses, schools, and other buildings.

California’s “time-displaced” power output during peak power-using evening hours from batteries charged with excess midday solar power, a classic “electron arbitrage” use case, rose from less than 1 GW in 2022 to 4.9 GW (4,900 MW) in 2025. As in Texas, this statewide battery buildout has stabilized the state’s grid, essentially ending once-common rolling blackouts. California has now gone more than three years straight without calling a once-common “Flex Alert” urging voluntary electricity conservation. After years of incredibly high electricity prices (in large part due to destructive wildfires), the California legislature recently passed energy affordability legislation SB 254 to lower electricity costs for low-income families and accelerate clean energy and transmission line build-out to get more clean power on the grid.

State leaders must accelerate the buildout of the battery revolution to bring its benefits to their state as fast as possible, and there are tons of policy options available! Kickstart a statewide review to eliminate red-tape permitting bottlenecks like the governors of Oregon and Colorado are doing, pass an Illinois-style battery-boosting Clean and Reliable Grid Affordability Act, exempt solar farms from permitting review like Florida has, encourage municipal-level battery resilience like the EPB town utility is doing in Chattanooga, Tennessee…the list of options goes on and on. We need maximally supportive legal, regulatory, and permitting structures for batteries to make it as fast and easy as possible to build cheap, clean, reliable electricity for America!

Tell your state leaders to accelerate grid-scale battery build-out!