Extreme weather is getting worse — leading millions more to experience debilitating blackouts. Luckily, the home battery industry is booming.
Growing up in rural Tennessee, power outages were frequent and sometimes fun. With no TV or lights, we played boardgames by candlelight or played outside if the storm stopped. But because my family also ran a restaurant out of our house, sometimes the food in the fridges spoiled, leading to thousands of dollars worth of lost groceries. It never occurred to me so many years ago that a big battery could one day solve this problem. As extreme weather worsens due to climate change, leading millions more to experience debilitating blackouts, the home battery industry is booming. Home batteries are not like the AAA batteries that go in your TV remote control. They're big, high-capacity lithium-ion workhorses designed to power multiple devices and appliances in the event of a power outage. The amount of energy that can be stored in residential batteries, which is measured in gigawatt hours (GWh), grew by a record 54 percent from 2023 to 2024, according to a new report on energy storage in the United States. It's now enough to power up to 1 million homes. Growth is even bigger in Europe. Many home batteries are being used to store energy from solar panels, but there's a burgeoning market for backup batteries that can keep essential appliances, like refrigerators, running during a power outage. Some of these batteries are also smart enough to charge up when energy is cheap and then discharge when it's expensive to save on utility bills. We're also starting to see appliances with built-in batteries that make them more efficient and effective. Solving the lost groceries problem is only the beginning. As more people add battery capacity to their homes, the power grid can become more resilient to spikes in energy usage and bring down costs for everyone. While the number of battery-powered houses still make up a minority of all the homes in the US, home batteries are becoming more affordable and accessible, giving the average American household the chance to take advantage…