In the face of soaring energy demand and electric rates, battery developers across the U.S. are stepping in with massive, multihundred-megawatt systems that can cheaply dispatch power when it’s needed most.

Virginia — the world’s data center capital — is starting to catch on to the big-battery trend. But a new project by local electric providers in the state underscores that much smaller storage projects have value, too: They’re designed to fill specific community needs and — due to their size — relatively quick and low-cost to build.

The Blue Ridge Power Agency, which serves a string of nonprofit utilities in central and western Virginia, is set to go live this summer with a collection of five batteries of about 5 megawatts each. The systems will help two rural electric co-ops and the city of Salem’s utility save money by storing power when it is cheap and abundant. They can then rely on that saved-up power when high demand on the grid spikes prices.

All in all, the projects are predicted to save the member utilities $100 million over the batteries’ 20-year lifespan, addressing long-held local concerns over rising costs.

Lightshift Energy, the storage developer building the five batteries, has formed a bit of a niche working with small, member-owned utilities, said Rob Greskowiak, the company’s chief commercial officer.

These nonprofit utilities are rooted in their communities and intimately familiar with their customers and grids, Greskowiak explained. ​“These municipalities are like, ​‘Listen, I know the 50,000 people that live here, and I know that this distribution circuit is not reliable and that our energy costs are going up,’” he said. At Lightshift, ​“we can find a very acute problem and solve it with 5- to 30-megawatt-sized batteries.”

Small cooperatives’ investment in storage extends well beyond Virginia. As of the first quarter of 2025, 136 battery storage projects sponsored by co-ops were underway or operational in 27 states, according to an analysis by the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association. It predicts that storage deployed by co-ops will more than triple, from 439 megawatts of capacity to 1.5 gigawatts, in the next three years.

The smaller batteries these co-ops tend to favor are cost-competitive because they avoid the need for expensive network upgrades, don’t require expensive long-lead equipment, and are sited on very small footprints, Greskowiak said.

Their minimal impact means they’re often quicker to permit and gain community acceptance than larger versions, he added. ​“If you’re putting in a battery that isn’t that big in a spot that already has that infrastructure, people aren’t really batting an eye on that.” The company can typically go from initial discussions with a utility to operations in 18 to 24 months, he said, significantly faster than transmission-scale assets.

The rapid setup is particularly meaningful in Virginia as data center plans flood the state and send power-demand forecasts ballooning, said Nikhil Kumar, program director at GridLab, a nonprofit that provides technical support on the clean energy transition in a range of settings. ​“Speed to power,” he said, ​“it’s in the zeitgeist right now.”

While reining in power prices is the main motivation behind the Blue Ridge Power Agency’s midsize-battery buildout, Greskowiak emphasized other advantages as well. ​“Battery storage is best when it acts like the Swiss army knife that everybody talks about,” he said.

A key benefit includes storing electrons from solar and wind and dispatching them when the sun fades or the breeze dies down, enabling even more renewable energy deployment. ​“Local homeowners, local businesses, local community solar gardens can add to that grid more sustainable energy,” he said, ​“because we’ve released and unlocked more capability at those substations to host more solar.”

Batteries are also getting cheaper and cheaper, with the average price of a lithium-ion battery pack dropping by nearly 80% over the last decade. And even though President Donald Trump and congressional Republicans slashed incentives for wind and solar last year, they retained the 30% credit for storage well into the next decade. ​“That’s another big advantage,” Kumar said.

The Blue Ridge Power Agency project is just the latest example of a small Virginia utility quickly deploying batteries. Lightshift has partnered with the city of Danville on two systems that total over 20 megawatts and are expected to save customers $70 million; the first went online in 2022, and the second is under construction. Last year, developers announced two similar-sized projects for a co-op on the state’s Eastern Shore.

Co-ops’ increased interest in storage comes as the state directs its two investor-owned utilities to ramp up investments, too: A law recently enacted by Gov. Abigail Spanberger, a Democrat, requires Dominion Energy and Appalachian Power to build nearly 17 gigawatts of battery storage by 2045; their former target was 3 gigawatts by 2035.

All these planned storage investments will be necessary to ease grid strain and bring down costs, Kumar said. ​“Especially in Virginia, with the large loads and the data center growth, we’ll need a lot of these projects to help the grid.”

Elizabeth Ouzts

is a contributing reporter at Canary Media who covers North Carolina and Virginia.