Energy storage system prices have moderately declined in recent months, but new tariffs and trade rulings are creating fresh uncertainty in the market.
A new Q1 2025 report from Anza, a subscription-based data and analytics software platform, analyzes list-price trends and key factors shaping pricing for energy storage systems.
The report found that prices in the Lithium Carbonate Index (LCO) are slightly leveling out after steadily increasing between August and November 2024. At the start of February 2025, the LCO smoothed out at approximately $10,640 per metric ton.
The slight stabilization in lithium carbonate prices has lessened price swings for battery cells, providing a measure of stability to the energy storage market despite potential macro-level cost variability.
At the same time, more manufacturers are entering the storage market. Though this is true of utility-scale and distributed generation (DG) projects, the latter has experienced an influx of suppliers and increased competition. This places downward pressure on energy storage prices and is a root cause of notable declining median system costs.
Buyers for utility-scale projects are also benefiting from greater supplier options and discounts, both of which help pull prices down. And a more saturated small project supplier landscape is pushing DG prices closer to those of utility-scale projects.
New tariffs are set to introduce fresh challenges to the market, the report indicated.
The report only uses data from January 31, 2025, and earlier, so it does not include the 10% tariff on Chinese imports that went into effect on February 4. That tariff, along with a preliminary ruling from the International Trade Commission finding that Chinese imports of active anode materials are likely harming the U.S. industry, is set to shake up the storage industry in the weeks to come.
“At the macro-level, we are still in an overcapacity world across the entire battery value chain,” the report explains. “However, while most storage suppliers have stayed put on their pricing in recent weeks…this is almost certainly about to change.”
Suppliers must now reassess their costs and determine potential adjustments to their deal structures, as it’s become difficult for them to establish firm pricing expectations in the wake of the uncertainty. Pricing as of February remains unclear.
While median energy storage system prices declined slightly between August 2024 and the end of January 2025, the report found the rate of change varied by project type.
DG projects experienced more changes in cost than utility-scale projects. For a typical 40 MW distributed generation project with four hours of storage, median AC pricing fell by approximately 3%, or $4 per kilowatt-hour (kWh), while median DC pricing declined by just under 3%, or $3 per kWh.
AC pricing for a larger 200 MW utility-scale project with four hours of storage capacity saw only a slight drop of about a dollar per kWh, or a bit under one percent; DC pricing declined more significantly by about $4 per kWh or 3.7%.
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