A battery storage loan is priced on a fleet nobody has seen fail. The public record shows what did fail, where, and what followed. This report puts that record in the order a lender asks the questions.
See all 25 blurred figures in this report
The trendReported battery incidents by year since 2020
35 so far in 2026 against 29 in 2025. Counts of published reporting, so they rise with the fleet and with how much gets reported, not with failure rates alone.
| Year | Incidents | Fires | Major |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2020 | 2 | 2 | 2 |
| 2021 | 9 | 9 | 3 |
| 2022 | 21 | 17 | 2 |
| 2023 | 32 | 27 | 3 |
| 2024 | 24 | 23 | 3 |
| 2025 | 29 | 24 | 1 |
| 2026 | 35 | 28 | 0 |
Peer comparisonIncidents per GW of operating battery capacity, by country
Entries since 2020 against the operating battery capacity the register's site list holds for each country (the planning database in Great Britain, EIA-860 in the United States, ODRE in France and the Global Energy Monitor elsewhere). Countries with at least 0.5 GW listed and three entries. A rate, not a probability: the fleet and the reporting both differ by country.
| Country | GW listed | Incidents | Per GW |
|---|---|---|---|
| Australia | 2.0 | 7 | 3.5 |
| United Kingdom | 5.0 | 13 | 2.6 |
| France | 2.3 | 4 | 1.7 |
| United States | 56.7 | 50 |
Subscribers Blurred figures are in the subscriber edition. See the plans.
Where a fleet sits against these figures is one question a lender can now ask with a number in hand.
What failsThe part named most often
Of the battery entries whose full record names the part that failed (131), these are named most often.
| Part | Entries | Share |
|---|---|---|
| battery energy storage system | 3 | 2% |
| not reported | 2 | 2% |
Subscribers Blurred figures are in the subscriber edition. See the plans.
WhenCommissioning against normal operation
Of the 152 battery entries with a stage of life recorded:
Contracts and policies concentrate on commissioning. The record shows where the incidents actually sit.
Time out and lossHow long a battery site is out, and what it costs
From the loss and downtime estimate on every entry (191 battery incidents), counted at the middle of each range; a figure a source states always wins. The full method is in the loss and downtime benchmarks.
| Measure | Typical | 90th pct |
|---|---|---|
| Time out of service | 16 weeks | |
| Loss per incident | ||
| Out for more than 30 days | ||
| Out for more than 90 days |
Subscribers Blurred figures are in the subscriber edition. See the plans.
Due diligenceSix questions to ask a borrower, each with a number behind it
- Which cells, modules and integrator are in the system, and have any of them been named in a published incident? The register lists every company named in its entries, and a counterparty check takes a minute.
- What protects the battery energy storage system? It is the part most often named in the battery entries that record one (3 of 131).
- What does the commissioning plan say about energisation, state-of-charge limits and fire-service liaison? 12% of the battery incidents with a stage recorded happened during commissioning.
- What is the business interruption waiting period, and does the model survive 16 weeks out of service? That is the typical time out for a battery incident on the register, and 78% of them ran past 30 days.
- How does the site's country compare? Incidents per GW in this report range from 1.1 to 3.2 across the countries with enough entries to count, so a fleet's record should be read against its own market, not the world.
- Who is told when the register records an incident at this site, or at a site with the same equipment? A free account watches three sites; the plans watch every site in a portfolio.
Subscriber editionWhat the full report adds
- Subscribers Every country's incidents and fires per GW, not only the top three.
- Subscribers The full ranking of failed parts, and the loss and time out in pounds and days with the 90th percentiles.
- Subscribers The largest estimated battery losses of the last two years, each linked to its entry.
- Subscribers My sites: a portfolio's sites checked against every entry, an email the moment a new one is published, and the live outage notices at each site.
See the plans. A free account watches three sites; Analyst includes this report and every record, at £39 a month.
What this report is not
It is a reading of reported incidents, not a failure rate. The per-GW figures use the capacity the register's site list holds for each country, which is not the whole fleet everywhere, and reporting differs by country and by year.
Most loss and downtime figures are estimates, each a range counted at its middle. The register grows daily, so the figures will move. Nothing here is advice; it is the record, in order.