Rubbish Check
Forbes Business · August 16, 2026
source“Battery Storage Grew 66% In 2025. China Now Controls Nearly Half”
R2/ 10
Lightly altered
Rubbish Rating — 1 = base fact, 10 = pure rubbish
12345678910
In short
Rubbish Talk rates Forbes' claim that "battery storage grew 66% in 2025 and China now controls nearly half" a 2/10 because both numbers, the 65.8% global growth rate and China's 48% share, are the actual headline figures from the Energy Institute's 2026 Statistical Review of World Energy, reported with almost no distortion.
The Verdict
Lightly altered. The two figures in the headline are the two most important numbers in the underlying data release, faithfully rounded (65.8% to 66%, 48% to "nearly half"). The only nitpick is the verb "controls," which implies geopolitical dominance when the underlying metric is simply installed grid capacity share, a minor editorial flourish rather than a distortion of the facts.
What actually happened
The Energy Institute's 2026 Statistical Review of World Energy reported that global battery energy storage capacity jumped from 182.0 GW in 2024 to 301.7 GW in 2025. China ended 2025 with the largest national share of that total by a wide margin, with the United States a distant second.
Key facts
- Global battery capacity: "Global battery energy storage system capacity reached 301.7 gigawatts in 2025, up from 182.0 GW in 2024. That is a one-year increase of nearly 120 GW, or 65.8%."
- China's total and share: "China finished 2025 with about 144.1 GW of installed battery capacity. That represented nearly 48% of the global total."
- China's year-over-year addition: "A year earlier, China's capacity stood at 79.5 GW. Thus, China added almost 64.6 GW in a single year, more than half of all the new battery capacity installed worldwide."
- U.S. for comparison: "The United States ranked second with 56.6 GW of installed battery capacity in 2025, representing almost 19% of the global total. U.S. capacity increased from 34.7 GW in 2024, a gain of more than 21.9 GW, or about 63% in a single year."
- Combined dominance: "China and the United States together now account for about two-thirds of the world's installed battery capacity."
What to watch for
The article flags that this data is measured in megawatts (power capacity), not megawatt-hours (stored energy), so it doesn't capture how long batteries can discharge, watch for future coverage that conflates capacity growth with total energy storage. Also watch whether China's front-of-the-meter buildout (nearly 134 GW, almost entirely utility-scale) keeps outpacing behind-the-meter growth elsewhere, since that split shapes how "control" should really be read.
About this scoreThe R-Score is Rubbish Talk's editorial opinion on how far a headline's framing sits from what the underlying facts support. It is a judgement about presentation and emphasis, not an allegation that any outlet has acted dishonestly. Every figure we rely on is linked under Receipts so you can check it yourself.
