U.S. energy storage developers installed 9.7 gigawatt-hours of new capacity in the first quarter of 2026, marking a record high for the quarter, an industry report showed on Thursday. Energy storage capacity grew 32% in the quarter from a year ago despite federal actions the industry says are slowing clean energy development, the report by the Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA) and Benchmark Mineral Intelligence said. The SEIA said the demand is being driven by data centers, volatile electricity prices and disruptions to global gas and gas turbine supplies. Major technology companies, including Google and Meta, have announced deals this year to procure tens of thousands of megawatt-hours of storage to power data centers needed to run AI technologies.