Storage · Supply chain

Battery cell prices fall again, but storage projects still wait on the grid

Supplier data show storage cells 19% cheaper than a year ago. Developers and analysts say the savings are not reaching project schedules.

By Leah BrandtOctober 15, 2026

The price of the battery cells that go into grid storage projects fell again this year, according to supplier data, extending a two-year decline that has left batteries cheaper and easier to buy than at any point since utility-scale storage took off. The schedules for those projects are still set somewhere else.

Vale Systems, an electrical equipment maker that also builds battery enclosures, said in its storage equipment supply outlook, published October 6, that the average contracted price for LFP storage cells delivered to US projects was $47 per kilowatt-hour in the third quarter. That is down 19% from $58 a year earlier and from $71 two years ago. Integrated DC blocks, which package cells with racks, cooling and an enclosure, fell 14% to $96/kWh. Delivery times improved as well: Vale’s median quoted lead time for battery enclosures fell to five months from nine.

Cheaper batteries have not made projects faster. Fieldline Research, an independent research firm, published an outlook on October 13 based on a sample of 163 projects from 14 developers. The sample contains 8 GWh of planned storage for 2024, 12 GWh for 2025 and 18 GWh for 2026. Developers named the connection queue as the main schedule constraint for 62% of those projects. Battery supply was named for 6%.

Fieldline is careful about what those figures mean. “These are plans, not installations,” said Miriam Okafor, the senior analyst who led the work. “A project counted for 2026 still has to get through the queue and get its equipment delivered before it operates. Cheaper cells change the economics of a project. They do not change the date the grid operator will let it connect.”

Grid operator data point the same way. Midland Grid reported on October 9 that standalone storage requests that signed an interconnection agreement in the past year had waited an average of 34 months, up from 27 months two years earlier.

The next bottleneck

Where the two reports differ is in emphasis about what comes next. Vale’s outlook says transformer lead times reach 18 months for the projects in its sample. For 22 of the 34 projects in that sample with a signed interconnection agreement, the main power transformer was the last major item to arrive on site, and nine of the 34 received a major item after their planned energization date.

“For a growing share of projects, the date is set by when the transformer shows up,” said Tomás Reyes, Vale’s vice president of supply chain. “Battery availability has improved, but long-lead electrical equipment can delay projects after connection approval. If the queues speed up, that will be true for more projects, not fewer.”

Okafor treats equipment as a secondary issue for most of the pipeline. “Transformers matter for projects that already have their agreement, and that group is growing,” she said. “But in our sample the queue is still the main constraint by a wide margin. Most projects are not yet at the point where a transformer could hold them up.”

Part of the difference comes from what each sample covers. Vale’s includes only projects that have reached the equipment ordering stage, and its report notes that the sample “covers equipment delivery, not the approval queue.” Fieldline’s covers the whole pipeline, including projects that are years from an agreement. Both agree that battery supply is no longer the problem it was two years ago.

Developers are adjusting to both constraints. Dana Whitcomb, who leads development at Cedar Grid, told a storage industry forum in September that her company now orders main power transformers at or before signing its interconnection agreements and accepts cancellation fees on projects that fail in study.

Vale expects cell prices to stay flat or drift slightly lower into 2027, and main power transformer lead times to stay between 14 and 18 months through the middle of next year. That holds even with new factory capacity, including a second transformer line the company announced on September 29 at its Carver Point plant, which is not expected to deliver its first units until the second half of 2027.

Energy storageBattery pricesInterconnectionTransformers