Uche Cecil Izuora
Africa, holds some of the world’s largest reserves of several minerals essential to battery production, however despite that resource base, the continent’s battery energy storage market was worth only $80.8 million in 2025, according to Next Move Strategy Consulting.
This is compared with the global market value of $50.81 billion, according to MarketsandMarkets.
The imbalance becomes more significant as supply constraints for strategic minerals intensify.
The International Energy Agency (IEA) projects a 40 per cent lithium supply deficit and a 30 per cent copper supply deficit by 2035 unless mining investment accelerates substantially.
Emerging battery technologies are unlikely to alter the industry’s geopolitical balance in the near term.
China continues to dominate the production of several critical battery materials, supplying 75 per cent of the phosphoric acid used in LFP batteries and 95 per cent of the manganese sulfate required for sodium-ion batteries.
The IEA said that concentration underscores China’s continued strategic influence over global battery supply chains.
Global installed battery energy storage capacity is expected to increase from 224.8 gigawatts (GW) at the end of 2025 to 1,300 GW by 2030, representing a compound annual growth rate of 42 per cent, according to GlobalData’s report, Strategic Intelligence: Batteries in Power (2026), published on July 28.
GlobalData attributed its growth forecast to the accelerating electrification of the global economy, the rapid deployment of solar and wind power, rising electricity demand from artificial intelligence data centers and the continued decline in lithium-ion battery prices.
The forecast reinforces an earlier trend identified by the IEA.
In its 2024 report, Batteries and Secure Energy Transitions, the agency projected that lithium-ion battery prices would decline by 40 per cent between 2023 and 2030.
The decline in battery costs is also driving technological changes across the industry. Utilities are increasingly replacing two-hour battery systems with four-hour systems capable of storing surplus solar generation during the middle of the day and supplying electricity during evening peak demand.
“The power sector is increasingly standardizing procurement around four-hour systems,” said Rehaan Shiledar, an analyst at GlobalData.
Battery storage systems now perform functions well beyond emergency backup power.
GlobalData said batteries actively manage electricity flows between generation sources and consumers, respond to voltage fluctuations within milliseconds and help balance electricity supply and demand across power grids.
The shift is evident in the rapid expansion of hybrid solar-plus-storage projects. By sharing the same site and grid connection, these facilities reduce construction costs while storing excess solar generation for dispatch during periods of peak electricity demand.
Beyond electricity networks, data centers have emerged as one of the fastest-growing markets for battery storage systems. Batteries are increasingly replacing conventional uninterruptible power supply (UPS) systems by actively managing energy flows, reducing electricity costs through peak shaving and ensuring uninterrupted power within milliseconds, the analyst added.
The market is also diversifying technologically. Lithium iron phosphate (LFP) batteries now account for nearly 50 per cent of the global electric vehicle battery market, compared with less than 10 per cent in 2020.
Meanwhile, sodium-ion batteries, which depend less on scarce critical minerals, are gradually emerging as credible alternatives, according to the IEA’s Global Critical Minerals Outlook 2025.
China and the United States together accounted for 74.6 per cent of global installed battery storage capacity at the end of 2025, supported by favorable regulatory frameworks and large-scale procurement programs, GlobalData said.
Europe aims to increase its market share to around 15% by 2030. However, achieving that objective will require reducing its dependence on China, which controls 85% of global battery cell production and more than 75 per cent of the refining capacity for the raw materials used in battery manufacturing, according to the IEA.