Saudi Arabia added 12.5 GWh of large-scale storage during June 2026 and accounted for 37% of the 33.5 GWh connected globally in the month , above China's 10.1 GWh, equivalent to 30%, and far from the 2.4 GWh recorded in Europe, which represented 7%.
Saudi Arabia's surge was driven by five megaprojects of approximately 500 MW and 2.5 GWh each, which came online almost simultaneously . Even so, this figure exceeds a typical monthly statistical anomaly: the facilities were contracted in February 2025 and began operating in June 2026, a period of just 16 months.
“ There’s quite a 'snapshot of the month' effect: five megaprojects came online almost simultaneously, and that boosted June. But to reduce it to just that would be an understatement ,” explained Alejandro Diego Rosell . energy consultant, in conversation with Strategic Energy.
The speed of execution responds to a combination of renewable expansion, a growing need for flexibility, and an institutional framework capable of reducing contracting and development times.
“Saudi Arabia is bringing in a lot of solar energy, it has a grid that needs flexibility and, above all, it has something that in energy is worth almost as much as money: the ability to decide, contract and execute very quickly,” Rosell said.
The specialist considered the volume recorded in June to be exceptional, although he linked it to a sustained energy strategy and not exclusively to the temporal coincidence of the projects.
“ So June is exceptional, but behind it there is a fairly structural strategy ,” he added.
Contracts, scale, and national planning behind BESS
The development of storage is part of Vision 2030 and the National Renewable Energy Program (NREP) , both under the supervision of the Ministry of Energy, within a roadmap that seeks to raise the renewable share to approximately 50% of electricity generation by 2030.
Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia aims to have up to 48 GWh of storage available by that year , while in February 2025 the Government reported that it had tendered projects for around 26 GWh.
The strategy positions BESS as infrastructure intended to support solar and wind expansion and provide flexibility to the electrical system, beyond their development as purely commercial assets.
Saudi Power Procurement Company (SPPC), also known as Principal Buyer , plays a central role in this scheme by procuring utility-scale storage.
The company uses the Independent Storage Provider (ISP) model, structured under Build-Own-Operate (BOO) schemes. The successful bidder establishes a special purpose entity that signs a Storage Services Agreement with SPPC.
This design establishes long-term contracts to remunerate availability and storage services, in contrast to markets where revenues depend primarily on arbitrage, ancillary services, or exposure to the spot market.
The first round includes 2 GW distributed across four 500 MW projects , while in April 2026 SPPC launched a second phase of 3 GW / 12 GWh , spread across six four-hour installations.
The Saudi market is thus moving from BESS associated with renewable power plants towards independent systems specifically contracted to provide services to the electricity system .
The modular nature of the technology itself also allows for shorter construction times when the prerequisites are met.
“ Because a BESS is much more modular than a conventional power plant and, if you have financing, land, connection and permits sorted, you can industrialize the process a lot ,” Rosell explained.
The specialist pointed out that a large part of the components are supplied with a high degree of prefabrication, which shifts the main obstacles to stages prior to installation.
“ Containers, inverters, transformers… a good part of it arrives practically 'prefabricated'. The bottleneck is often not installing the batteries, but everything that happens beforehand ,” he said.
Saudi Arabia reduces some of these frictions through large-scale projects, a centralized buyer, and less administrative fragmentation .
“ And that’s where Saudi Arabia has an advantage: large projects, a centralized buyer, and less administrative fragmentation ,” Rosell stated.
The deployment also has a specific technical framework. The Saudi Electricity Regulatory Authority (SERA) regulates the sector, while the Saudi Electricity Company (SEC) provides connection standards, technical guidelines, inspection procedures, and testing protocols for BESS .
The Saudi Arabian Grid Code supplements these provisions with requirements on connection, planning, operation, dispatch, metering, and information exchange in the transmission network. Its version, published by Saudi National Grid, was updated in May 2026.
Europe: the problem is not technology
The difference compared to Europe was considerable during June. While Saudi Arabia added 12.5 GWh and China 10.1 GWh, the European continent added 2.4 GWh , around a fifth of the Saudi volume.
According to Rosell, the lag is not related to a lack of available technology, but to administrative times, network access, and still heterogeneous remuneration structures.
“ Europe doesn’t have a technological problem. It has a speed problem and, in some countries, still a business model problem ,” he warned.
The need for storage increases at the same rate as solar and wind penetration, because the system requires more capacity for energy displacement, regulation, balancing, and congestion management .
According to the data provided, the European Union's flexibility needs could reach 288 TWh in 2030 .
Permits, connections, taxation, and different market designs continue to affect bankability and the pace of new projects.
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“There are permits, connections, taxation, different markets and price signals that do not always compensate for all the services that a battery provides to the grid,” Rosell explained.
The consultant identified three regulatory priorities to accelerate European deployment.
“ I would accelerate three things: network connectivity, capacity/flexibility markets, and the real possibility of revenue stacking ,” he stated.
Revenue stacking allows a battery to combine different revenue streams for the various services it provides to the system , instead of relying on a single market or payment mechanism.
“ That is, a battery can charge for arbitrage, balance, capacity, congestion and other services without encountering a different regulatory barrier at every turn ,” Rosell explained.
European regulation is gradually moving towards this multiple recognition of services, although the pace remains uneven between different countries .
This contrast becomes more relevant because the increase in renewable generation simultaneously raises the need for storage, while grid access times can delay projects even more than their construction.
“ In other markets, you can spend more time waiting for a connection than building the battery itself ,” Rosell explained.
China loses a month, but not its leadership
Saudi Arabia's June record temporarily interrupted China's monthly lead, but did not change the Asian giant's structural position within the global storage market .
“ No. Not even close. One month doesn't make a trend ,” Rosell responded when asked about a possible loss of Chinese leadership.
China ended 2025 with 136 GW / 351 GWh of new installed energy storage capacity , after registering an 84% year-on-year growth, and exceeded 140 GW by the end of the first quarter of 2026.
Projects exceeding 100 MW represent 72% of installed capacity , while systems operating for four hours or more account for 27.6%. Independent storage, in turn, now represents 51.2% of the total volume.
“China still has a combination that is difficult to replicate: a huge electricity market, domestic battery manufacturing, very low costs, and a huge amount of new renewables that need flexibility,” Rosell pointed out.
The Chinese regulatory framework is also undergoing significant evolution. Since the initial New Energy Storage policies of 2021 and 2022, the country has moved towards greater participation of independent storage in the electricity market and dispatch .
In 2024, the systems were formally recognized as new-type market entities , which strengthened their ability to participate in energy and ancillary services markets.
The model continues to shift towards a structure where a BESS can generate revenue through the spot market, arbitrage between off-peak and peak periods, ancillary services, capacity and other flexibility features , although the specific rules still largely depend on each province.
This change gradually reduces the reliance on mandatory storage requirements that some jurisdictions applied to new solar and wind projects.
The reform of renewable electricity prices promoted in 2025 reinforced this transition by promoting greater participation of renewable generation in the market and price formation increasingly determined by commercial transactions.
During 2026, the policy also moved towards mechanisms capable of reflecting the value of energy storage, regulation, capacity and other services , including capacity payments for grid-connected stand-alone systems.
China is thus seeking to transform the BESS from a resource primarily associated with the integration of renewables into an independent asset capable of monetizing the flexibility it brings to the system .
In response to this evolution, Saudi Arabia is developing a different approach: centralized procurement and long-term agreements aimed at rapidly deploying national storage infrastructure .
Both markets share the need to add BESS on a large scale, but they do so with different models. China is deepening its participation in electricity markets and diversifying its revenue streams, while Saudi Arabia prioritizes stable contracts and centralized planning .
The Chinese framework also incorporated increasing safety requirements for design, construction, commissioning, connection, operation, maintenance, monitoring, and emergency response.
In 2025, the requirements for electrochemical storage systems were specifically strengthened, and since July 2026, the national standard GB/T 46957-2025 , focused on general safety conditions for grid-connected installations, has been in effect.
The size of the Chinese market is also accompanied by accelerated global expansion. According to data cited by Rosell, 108 GW of battery capacity were installed worldwide in 2025, 40% more than the previous year .
The leap recorded by Saudi Arabia in June therefore shows a change of scale in the global storage business rather than a structural change in the sector's leadership .
Projects are no longer analyzed solely in MW and are now being deployed in blocks of several GWh, accompanying electrical systems that increasingly incorporate renewable generation and require greater flexibility resources.
Saudi Arabia demonstrated that 12.5 GWh can be moved from contracting to operation in about 16 months , while China maintains a base of over 140 GW and continues to expand mechanisms to monetize the value of batteries.
Europe faces a different kind of pressure: shortening regulatory and connection times, harmonizing economic signals, and allowing BESSs to capture revenue for all the services they provide to the system .
Global competition for storage is thus beginning to depend as much on the installed volume as on each market's ability to quickly contract, finance, connect and remunerate new assets .