By Keith Reynolds | Publisher & Editor, ChargedUp!
Twenty point two gigawatt-hours. The United States installed more battery storage in the second quarter than in any quarter on record, and more than a tenth of everything ever installed in the country came online in those three months. In the same stretch, oil returned to $97, a strong jobs report pushed the odds of a September rate increase near 60 percent, and a new executive order put foreign-made grid equipment under national security review. The build is accelerating into a tightening cost of capital.
Grid Stress, Storms and Resilience Economics
1. Oil Returns to $97 as Tanker Strikes Resume
Read updates to this story in this week's True Cost of Power column.
Brent crude settled near $97.39 a barrel Friday, up roughly 11 percent over the past month and about 47 percent against the same period last year, after the United States targeted three Iranian oil tankers over the weekend in retaliation for ballistic missile attacks on Navy warships. U.S. markets were closed Monday for Labor Day, so Friday's close remains the most current reading as of this writing. Tehran responded by attacking vessels linked to the United States and signaled it would introduce a restricted maritime zone beyond the Strait of Hormuz in the coming days.
This is the eighth round of escalation and relief in this conflict during 2026. The pattern has been consistent enough that no single week of it supports a capital plan, but the ratchet in the risk premium has not reversed to pre-war levels since spring.
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2. Goldman Flags Larger Supply Shocks in Gas and Refined Products Than in Crude
Goldman Sachs commodity analyst Daan Struyven said the bank sees meaningful upside to crude prices but that investors should focus on natural gas and refined products, where the supply shocks are larger than in the crude market, with Persian Gulf shipments estimated below 45 percent of pre-war levels. The bank has previously modeled Brent above $120 in the fourth quarter under a scenario of continued Hormuz disruption, against a baseline near $80.
The refined products point is the one that reaches buildings. Diesel and natural gas set delivered energy costs and utility fuel adjustments more directly than crude does, which means the pass-through to operating expenses may exceed what the crude headline implies. This week Goldman flagged meaningful upside and pointed to gas and refined products as carrying larger supply shocks than crude.
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OilPrice: Goldman Sachs warns oil could hit $120 as shipping risks rise
TradingKey: Goldman Sachs warns Hormuz risks, Brent may break $120
Electrification Economics at the Property Level
3. A Hot Jobs Report Puts a September Rate Increase Near Even Odds
United States employers added 162,000 jobs in August against consensus estimates near 53,000, with unemployment steady at 4.1 percent and July's reading revised from negative to positive. Average hourly earnings rose 0.3 percent on the month and 3.1 percent on the year. Traders moved the probability of a quarter-point increase at the September 15 and 16 meeting to roughly 58 to 60 percent, up about nine percentage points in a day. The 10-year Treasury yield reached 4.78 percent against 4.20 percent at the start of the year, the 2-year hit its highest level since January 2025, and the 30-year sat near 5.245 percent.
Inflation has run above the Federal Reserve's 2 percent target for five and a half years and remains above 3 percent, with oil the acknowledged contributor. For owners, the operative fact is that the debt cost assumption underlying 2027 refinancing models has moved again, and in the same direction as energy costs.
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4. UBS Now Forecasts Two Rate Increases This Year
UBS revised its outlook to two Federal Reserve rate increases in 2026 following the August employment report, and advised positioning for opportunities in longer-dated bond yields and gold hedges. Fed Governor Christopher Waller said separately that he would support holding rates steady if inflation data due this week shows continued moderation. Producer and consumer price readings land Thursday and Friday.
The forecast reversal is the signal worth tracking rather than the specific probability. Major banks moving from cut expectations to hike forecasts inside three weeks indicates the debt cost environment for 2027 maturities is being repriced faster than most underwriting cycles can absorb.
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CNBC: Fed rate hike odds rise, what UBS says to buy and avoid
Reuters via Investing.com: UBS forecasts two US Fed rate hikes in 2026
5. Commercial and Industrial Storage Installs 1.8 Gigawatt-Hours in a Quarter
Behind-the-meter commercial and industrial systems accounted for 1.8 gigawatt-hours of the record second-quarter storage total, against 657 megawatt-hours in the residential segment. Commercial and industrial deployment now runs at roughly three times residential volume by energy capacity.
The divergence is the story. Residential storage fell 27 percent year over year after the federal residential clean energy credit was removed, while commercial deployment continued. Behind-the-meter storage economics at commercial scale rest on demand charges and time-of-use spreads rather than on a homeowner credit, which makes them more durable through incentive changes.
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Solar, Storage and VPPs
6. The United States Installs a Record 20.2 Gigawatt-Hours of Storage in One Quarter
The United States installed 20.2 gigawatt-hours and 6.7 gigawatts of battery storage in the second quarter, the largest quarter on record and a 108 percent increase over the prior three months, bringing first-half installations to 30.8 gigawatt-hours, up 23 percent year over year. More than a tenth of all United States battery storage capacity now operating came online in that single quarter. Total installed capacity reached 165 gigawatt-hours. The figures come from the Q3 2026 U.S. Energy Storage Market Outlook published September 1 by the Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA) and Benchmark Mineral Intelligence.
Utility-scale accounted for 17.9 gigawatt-hours, including seven individual projects of 1,000 megawatt-hours or more across Arizona, California and Utah. Arizona added 6.2 gigawatt-hours, the strongest quarter ever recorded by a single state, followed by Texas at 3.8 and California at 3.6. Of new utility-scale capacity, 56 percent was standalone and 44 percent paired with solar, and the forecast through 2030 was raised 11.5 percent to 683 gigawatt-hours.
Standalone storage outpacing paired solar is the structural shift. Storage is being procured as capacity and as a timing asset rather than as an adjunct to generation, which is the same logic that makes behind-the-meter systems work against demand charges.
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Energy-Storage.news: US utility-scale capacity almost doubled in 18 months
Solar Power World: Q2 was biggest quarter ever for energy storage installs
7. Residential Storage Falls 27 Percent After the Federal Credit Disappears
Residential battery installations totaled 657 megawatt-hours in the second quarter, down 27 percent year over year, attributed partly to removal of the federal Section 25D residential clean energy credit and partly to homeowners pulling installations into 2025 ahead of the change. Benchmark forecasts residential installations falling 16 percent across 2026 while maintaining a long-term case tied to rising electricity costs, net metering changes, outage concerns and expanding virtual power plant programs.
The contrast with commercial deployment is the useful read. Removing a tax credit reduced residential volume immediately. Commercial and industrial volume, underwritten against demand charges and utility rate exposure rather than a credit, did not fall.
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8. SK On Commits Nine Gigawatt-Hours of Domestic Cells to a Georgia Battery Plant
SK On will supply NeoVolta Power with 9 gigawatt-hours of United States-made lithium iron phosphate cells from 2027 through 2031, shipped to NeoVolta's plant in Pendergrass, Georgia for assembly into storage systems for commercial, industrial and utility-scale projects. A second phase would add another 9 gigawatt-hours, though it depends on future orders and is not committed. NeoVolta's first line is in commissioning at 2 gigawatt-hours annually, with the SK On agreement potentially supporting a second line and total capacity up to 8 gigawatt-hours in 2028.
Domestic cell supply agreements matter more than they did a year ago. A new executive order places foreign-produced grid equipment under national security review, which raises the value of documented domestic supply chains for any owner specifying storage.
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9. Antora Raises $550 Million for Domestic Thermal Storage
Antora Energy closed $550 million in Series C funding to expand United States manufacturing of thermal battery storage, following the company's deployment of a 50-megawatt, 5-gigawatt-hour thermal battery system in South Dakota. The round, co-led by G2 Venture Partners and Eclipse, is intended to accelerate deployment and establish a second domestic manufacturing facility.
Thermal storage serves industrial process heat rather than electrical peak shaving, which places it in a different part of the building stack than lithium systems. For industrial property with process loads, it is a distinct decarbonization and cost-management path worth tracking separately from electrical storage.
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Policy and Market Rules
10. Storage Forecasts Rise Even as Federal Incentives Contract
SEIA and Benchmark raised the 2026 storage forecast to 71 gigawatt-hours, 20 percent above the 59 gigawatt-hours installed in 2025, and lifted the cumulative 2030 outlook by 11.5 percent to 683 gigawatt-hours. SEIA framed storage as a reliability tool that meets rising demand and puts downward pressure on electricity bills. Wood Mackenzie, which produces a competing quarterly monitor, has forecast 200 gigawatts and 655 gigawatt-hours of cumulative installations by 2031.
Two independent forecasters raising storage outlooks in the same period that residential incentives were withdrawn indicates the deployment case has decoupled from federal tax policy at utility and commercial scale. The driver is capacity value and rate exposure.
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EV Charging in Real Places
11. Section 30C Expiration Resets Charging Project Economics
The Section 30C Alternative Fuel Vehicle Refueling Property Credit applied to property placed in service before June 30, 2026, covering 6 percent of per-port infrastructure cost up to $100,000 per port, or 30 percent where prevailing wage and apprenticeship requirements were met. The credit applied per port rather than per site, which made it most valuable on multi-port depot installations. The Section 45W Commercial Clean Vehicle Credit expired September 30, 2025.
Charging projects underwritten during the credit window and not yet placed in service need their returns rebuilt without it. That is a live issue for depot and multifamily projects with 12 to 18 month utility interconnection timelines, where the service upgrade rather than construction sets the schedule.
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12. ChargePoint and OBE Power Target 2,500 Multifamily Ports
ChargePoint and OBE Power announced plans in May to deploy roughly 2,500 charging ports at multifamily residential properties across North America beginning in 2026, with ChargePoint serving as exclusive technology provider for the deployments.
Third-party ownership models continue to expand in multifamily, where the capital and operating burden has historically kept owners out. The structural questions are the same ones that apply to retail charging arrangements: who funds the service upgrade, who carries utilization risk, and what the instrument does at expiration.
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13. A Bay Area Fleet Depot Shows the Real Constraint Is the Interconnection
Renewable Properties is developing a 4 megawatt truck fleet charging hub on Goodrick Avenue in Richmond, California, with 60 stalls comprising 16 DC fast chargers and 48 Level 2 units, supported by a $20 million credit facility and a $3 million Bay Area Air District grant. The site sits in an industrial infill area near the Interstate 80 and 580 junction, with additional grid connection capacity from Pacific Gas and Electric expected to allow expansion. Construction runs to an expected October 2027 completion.
A construction window stretching well past two years on a fully financed, grant-supported project in a mandated market illustrates the point industrial owners keep encountering: the pacing item on depot charging is the utility interconnection, not the equipment or the capital.
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EV Market Signals
14. Fuel Prices Keep Doing the Work Incentives Used To
Oil near $97 and diesel above $5 a gallon continue to shift vehicle operating economics without any incentive support, following the expiration of the federal clean vehicle credits. The demand signal now runs through the spread between local fuel prices and local electricity prices rather than through purchase subsidies.
Charging utilization forecasts built on national adoption curves will misread this market. Site-level underwriting should test the fuel-to-electricity spread in the specific service territory, because that spread moves faster than registration data and is what actually drives session volume.
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Data Center Demand and Innovation
15. Data Center Load Reaches Existing Warehouse Product
A developer's proposal to convert a 350,000 square foot southwest Louisville warehouse into a data center, which preceded that city's moratorium vote, is a concrete instance of computing demand reaching standing industrial inventory rather than greenfield sites.
Conversion economics depend almost entirely on available electrical service, since the shell and the land are already in place. For owners of older distribution product in constrained submarkets, an existing service with meaningful capacity may be worth more as a conversion input than the building is as warehouse space, and a local moratorium can close that option without ever naming industrial property.
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16. Storage Buildout Becomes the Response to Load Growth
SEIA attributed the record storage quarter to grid operators, utilities and energy buyers turning to storage to strengthen reliability and meet rising electricity demand, with utility-scale capacity nearly doubling from 88 to 165 gigawatt-hours over 18 months, a figure that is cumulative front-of-meter capacity rather than a whole-market number. Several outlets repeated the doubling figure without that qualifier.
Storage is being built faster than transmission and faster than new thermal generation because it can be sited and energized on a shorter cycle. Where capacity is the binding constraint on new load, storage is the response arriving first, which affects how quickly a constrained submarket may open to new service.
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17. Data Center Developers Now Expect a Third of Sites to Go Fully Off-Grid by 2030
Hyperscalers and colocation providers surveyed for Bloom Energy's 2026 Data Center Power Report now expect roughly one-third of data centers to run on 100 percent onsite power by 2030, a 22 percent jump from the same survey six months earlier. The shift is also reshaping where developers build: Texas is projected to more than double its share of U.S. data center load to 30 percent by 2028, while legacy markets like California and Oregon are expected to lose roughly half their relative share.
The onsite-power figure is the one CRE owners should track over the raw growth numbers. A developer planning to generate a third of its own power is not waiting on interconnection queues the way a grid-dependent facility does, which changes both the site-selection calculus and the value of any parcel with existing onsite generation capacity or headroom for it.
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