More than one-third of new U.S. residential solar installations included battery storage in 2025, a sign that batteries are increasingly shifting from an optional add-on to a standard part of rooftop solar systems.
Here's what to know
As PV Magazine reported, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory said in its annual Tracking the Sun report that 37% of residential photovoltaic systems installed in 2025 came with batteries, compared with 25% in 2024.
By the end of 2025, the dataset tracked 5.3 million distributed solar and solar-plus-storage systems. Roughly 450,000 were installed during the year, and the lab estimated the data covered about 93% of the distributed solar market for 2025.
The trend stood out most clearly in California, where battery storage was attached to about 74% of new residential solar systems in 2025, rising from 58% the year before.
Other states moved in the same direction as well. Across all other states included in the comparison, the residential storage attachment rate rose from 7% to 17% in a year, with especially large increases in Arizona and Texas.
More background
California's policy changes appear to be related to the jumps observed there, per PV Magazine. After the state shifted new rooftop solar customers to the Net Billing Tariff, or Net Energy Metering 3.0, in April 2023, it reduced payments for electricity exported to the grid during many hours, which made saving daytime power in a battery more attractive.
The policy changes the basic economics of a rooftop system. If utilities pay less for exported power, homeowners can often get more value from solar by keeping that energy in a battery and using it during expensive evening hours.
As evidenced by the new report, adding battery storage is also one of the best ways to save money on energy and go off-grid. Paired with solar, a battery can keep essential devices running when the grid goes down while helping households rely more on their own stored electricity instead of utility power.
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For homeowners comparing options, it may make sense to explore EnergySage for information about home battery storage choices, including competitive installation estimates. EnergySage has also teamed up with the electrification brand Qmerit to guarantee you get the best price on home battery storage solutions.
Homeowners looking for a lower-cost backup option can consider Pila, whose plug-and-play batteries are priced at a fraction of what whole-home backup systems cost.
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