37% of U.S. new home solar paired with batteries in 2025

Estimated reading time: 5 minutes · Last updated: 2 October 2026

Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory's annual dataset shows battery storage was paired with 37% of new U.S. residential photovoltaic systems in 2025, up from 25% in 2024. The dataset covers roughly 5.3 million distributed solar and solar-plus-storage systems through the end of 2025 and counts about 450,000 systems installed in 2025, representing an estimated 93% of the U.S. distributed solar market that year. The jump reflects both California's continuing dominance and accelerating attachment rates in other states, and it coincided with a rise in battery power capability even where stored energy capacity held steady.

What the Berkeley Lab numbers show nationally

Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory's annual U.S. Distributed Solar and Storage Data update records a marked rise in onsite battery adoption for new rooftop solar projects in 2025. On the dataset's measure—batteries paired at the time of a new solar installation—37% of new residential photovoltaic systems included storage in 2025, up from 25% in 2024. The dataset spans roughly 5.3 million distributed solar and solar-plus-storage systems installed through the end of 2025 and notes about 450,000 systems were added during 2025, which the lab estimates represents 93% of that year's U.S. distributed solar market.

The report cautions that its attachment-rate metric omits batteries added after an initial solar installation and standalone battery systems, so it measures how commonly installers pair storage at the point of sale rather than total residential battery deployments. Even under that narrower definition, the year-on-year increase points to rapid growth in installers selling storage alongside panels.

Why California leads and why other states are catching up

California remains the largest driver of the national increase. Berkeley Lab records about 74% of new residential solar in California including storage in 2025, up from 58% in 2024. That rise followed California's shift to the Net Billing Tariff, commonly called NEM 3.0, in April 2023; the tariff reduced the value of exported solar energy for many hours, increasing the financial case for storing daytime generation.

At the same time, attachment rates outside California climbed from 7% in 2024 to 17% in 2025, more than doubling in one year. The lab highlighted particularly large increases in Arizona and Texas, and it said Hawaii and California continued to post the highest residential storage attachment rates in the country. Berkeley Lab did not assign a single cause outside California, noting instead a mix of net-metering changes and time-of-use rate structures that raise the value of stored power over exported energy.

What changed in product and market mix

Measured storage capacity per residence held steady: the report shows median residential storage capacity remained 13.5 kWh in both 2024 and 2025. The meaningful change was in power delivery: median discharge capacity rose from 6 kW in 2024 to 11.4 kW in 2025. Berkeley Lab attributes much of that jump to growing deployment of higher-discharge products, specifically citing the Tesla Powerwall 3 as a driver of increased per-system discharge capability.

Storage is also growing in non-residential installations, though from a lower base. Batteries were attached to 11% of U.S. non-residential solar installations in 2025, up from 7% in 2024. California's non-residential attachment rate rose from 12% to 18% while the rate across other states doubled from 4% to 8%, indicating the pairing trend is spreading beyond residential rooftops.

Two short-term scenarios for U.S. residential solar-plus-storage

The bottom line

Berkeley Lab's dataset makes clear that pairing batteries with new residential solar systems moved from the exception toward the norm in 2025: 37% of new home solar installations included storage, driven by California's market and rising attachment rates elsewhere. The energy capacity per typical system held steady at 13.5 kWh, but system power nearly doubled on the median measure as higher-discharge products became more common. Because the lab's attachment metric excludes batteries added after initial installs and standalone systems, the figures describe how installers are selling storage at point of sale rather than total household storage deployment. The next Berkeley Lab update and state tariff actions will determine whether the trend keeps accelerating.

What to watch

• Watch for Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory's next U.S. Distributed Solar and Storage Data update; no date has been set.
• Watch for any California regulatory action that changes export compensation under the Net Billing Tariff (NEM 3.0); no date has been set.
• Watch for wider rollouts or announcements of high-discharge home batteries similar to Tesla Powerwall 3 in markets outside California; no date has been set.