Grid Battery Failure Rate Falls 97% as US Deployments Grow 250-Fold

The annual failure rate for US grid-scale batteries fell more than 97% between 2016 and 2025, even as cumulative deployments rose 250-fold over the same period. The figure comes from a report by the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI), which tallied arc flash, fire and explosion events at commercial and grid-scale battery installations worldwide and plotted them against deployment counts from the Solar Energy Industries Association and Benchmark Mineral Intelligence.

For three separate years over the past decade, the recorded failure rate was zero, because no known failures occurred in those years. What looks like a gap in the downward trend in the charts is, in fact, evidence of uneventful operations, EPRI notes. The dataset covers the United States in particular, where battery storage has become the top choice for new on-demand grid power.

Community opposition to battery projects has emerged as a limiting factor on the technology's growth, with fire risk cited most often. The EPRI data suggests that perception no longer matches the record.

What does the data actually show?

The report plots global failures of commercial and grid-scale batteries and shows the annual failure rate declining sharply as installations multiply. New safety standards have taken effect since the first large batteries came online, and both the batteries themselves and project layouts have grown more sophisticated, according to EPRI.

The dataset has limits. The sample size is small, which constrains statistical analysis.

"There just aren't a lot of failures, which is a good thing, but that means you don't have a very robust dataset to analyze," said Lakshmi Srinivasan, lead author of the EPRI report.

The raw count also does not capture the size or severity of individual events. Some were short-lived fires at small batteries. One incident outside Phoenix in 2019 sent four emergency responders to the hospital with serious injuries — the only significant bodily harm caused by a US grid battery fire to date.

Then there is Moss Landing in California, one of the first very large battery installations, which burned in a massive blaze in January 2025. The fire injured nobody but largely destroyed the power plant and forced a multi-day evacuation of the surrounding community. Moss Landing now surfaces routinely in public hearings when communities across the country weigh new battery development.

How do batteries compare with legacy grid equipment?

EPRI calculated that grid battery units now fail at a rate comparable to oil-filled transformers — the bulky substation components that convert electricity between higher and lower voltages. Transformers are "very well understood technology that's been deployed on the grid for decades, and so it's something that both the grid operators and industry is familiar with," Srinivasan said. At this point, she added, they are essentially "invisible" to the public.

"We can say safely that battery projects are receiving a lot of public scrutiny in ways that I don't see currently, at least, transformers or substation buildouts receive," Srinivasan said.

The comparison matters for permitting. Battery developers increasingly face local review processes that legacy substation equipment does not attract, and a single high-profile failure can shape hearings in unrelated jurisdictions.

EPRI suggests the data can help communities calibrate the risks of hosting batteries against the benefits: tax revenue, enhanced grid reliability and downward pressure on electricity costs at a time when energy affordability ranks among voters' top concerns.

What happens next?

The market milestone to watch is whether the 2025 failure rate holds as deployments continue to climb. If Moss Landing remains an outlier rather than a trend, the transformer-level failure benchmark gives developers and regulators a concrete answer to the fire question at future siting hearings.