Battery makers worldwide have committed to 6,500 gigawatt hours of factory capacity by 2030, and the United States alone has 700 gigawatt hours under construction now

What committed capacity means

The International Energy Agency, an intergovernmental agency that tracks energy trends, reports that global battery manufacturing capacity reached 3,300 gigawatt hours a year in 2024. The agency counts a project as committed capacity when it is either under construction or has reached what it calls a final investment decision, meaning the money to build it is arranged even if ground has not yet been broken. Adding every committed project to the 2024 total would bring global capacity to about 6,500 gigawatt hours a year by 2030. Counting every public announcement, not only the funded ones, the agency puts the 2030 total above 9,000 gigawatt hours a year.

The United States has 700 gigawatt hours actually being built

A separate report from the same agency gives the only clean figure here for capacity that is literally under construction rather than merely funded, and it covers 1 country. United States battery manufacturing capacity doubled since 2022 to reach over 200 gigawatt hours a year in 2024. Nearly 700 gigawatt hours more is under construction now, on top of what is already running, about 3.5 times as much, a MAOWCE calculation from those same 2 figures. Demand for stationary battery storage, batteries that store power for the grid rather than for a vehicle, grew more than 60% a year for 2 years running.

Inside one of the plants being built

LG Energy Solution opened one of the largest battery cell factories in the country, in Lansing, Michigan, investing 2 billion dollars. The plant employs 900 people now and plans about 800 more, and once it reaches full capacity next year it will produce more than 35 gigawatt hours of cells a year. Devon Wilson, vice president of sales and marketing for the United States energy storage division at LG Energy Solution, said the market for energy storage systems, batteries that store power for the grid rather than for a car, has grown fast.

It's a great situation for us. We've seen an explosion in the size of the ESS market, so we've really been able to grow our demand.

Devon Wilson, vice president of sales and marketing for the United States energy storage division at LG Energy Solution. Source 4.

Phil Lienert, a spokesperson for LG Energy Solution, described the string of battery plants across southern Michigan and into Ontario, Canada.

We've almost got a perfect latitudinal line now that extends from Holland through Lansing to Windsor.

Phil Lienert, spokesperson for LG Energy Solution. Source 4.

Staff at the company call that stretch the battery belt.

Where factory capacity sits worldwide

A peer reviewed study in iScience gives the only region by region comparison, though it counts both running capacity and capacity only announced for 2028 and later, not a construction status figure on its own.

Greater Asia holds 2,691 gigawatt hours, more than Europe and North America combined. China alone accounts for 2,293.5 gigawatt hours of the Greater Asia total, not an amount added on top of it. The same study projects that 120 to 150 new battery plants will open worldwide by 2030, as annual demand for lithium ion battery cells grows from 700 to 4,700 gigawatt hours a year.

Not every announced project gets built

E2, a nonpartisan business group that tracks clean energy project announcements nationwide, counts 39 United States battery projects cancelled, closed or downsized since August 2022. Those cancellations cost 23.1 billion dollars in lost investment and 25,261 lost jobs, as of when the tracker was last updated in March 2026. The federal government has also ended the 7,500 dollar tax credit for buyers of electric vehicles and cancelled more than 700 million dollars in federal funds for battery and vehicle manufacturing projects.