The energy storage industry kicked off March with two headline developments that signal the sector's rapid maturation. In Canada, the 300MW/1,200MWh Hagersville Battery Energy Storage Park reached commercial operation, claiming the title of the country's largest operating BESS facility. Meanwhile, US startup Lyten finalized its acquisition of Northvolt's Swedish operations and unveiled plans for a 1GW data centre campus powered by hydroelectricity and battery storage. These milestones arrive at a moment when grid-scale storage demand is accelerating worldwide , driven by renewable energy targets, data centre power needs, and a growing recognition that batteries are critical infrastructure, not optional add-ons. Grid-scale energy storage is becoming essential infrastructure worldwide. Image: AI-generated Canada's Largest Battery Storage Facility Goes Live in Ontario Quebec-based independent power producer Boralex and Six Nations of the Grand River Development Corporation (SNGRDC) have commissioned the Hagersville Battery Energy Storage Park in Haldimand County, Ontario. The 300MW/1,200MWh project is now the largest operating battery energy storage system in Canada. The project was backed by CA$538 million (US$372.8 million) in financing, closed in December 2024. A banking syndicate that included Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation of Canada, Germany's KfW IPEX-Bank, the Korean Development Bank, and France's Crédit Industriel et Commercial arranged the deal. Battery energy storage facilities like Hagersville are transforming Canada's grid capacity. Image: AI-generated What makes Hagersville notable beyond its scale is the partnership model. Boralex and SNGRDC brought in A6N General Partnerships, a joint venture majority-owned by SNGRDC with construction company Aecon, to handle civil work. The project prioritized hiring local Six Nations labourers, creating a template for Indigenous-led participation in large energy infrastructure projects. SNGRDC is now the largest Indigenous holder of battery storage assets in North America. Combined with the recently commissioned 80MW/320MWh Sanjgon BESS in Lakeshore, Ontario (a partnership with Walpole Island First Nation), Boralex has positioned itself as Canada's top BESS operator. A third project, the 125MW/500MWh Oxford BESS, is expected to begin construction soon. By the numbers: Boralex's Canadian BESS portfolio now exceeds 1,500MWh of operational capacity across two facilities, with another 500MWh in development. Lyten Completes Northvolt Sweden Acquisition, Plans 1GW Data Centre Hub US battery technology startup Lyten has completed its acquisition of Northvolt's business operations in Sweden, giving the Silicon Valley company control of the Northvolt Ett gigafactory in Skellefteå and R&D laboratories in Västerås. The deal marks a new chapter for the factory that became a symbol of Europe's troubled push into domestic battery manufacturing. Lyten plans to resume commercial cell production at the former Northvolt factory in Sweden. Image: AI-generated Lyten's immediate plans include supplying lithium-ion NMC cells from Northvolt Ett to Northvolt Dwa, the BESS production facility in Poland that Lyten acquired last year. Commercial cell supply is expected to begin in the second half of 2026. The Västerås R&D labs will continue NMC cell development while collaborating with Lyten's US team on scaling lithium-sulfur battery technology. The company said it could hire over 600 additional employees across the Swedish sites within the next 12 months, working with local unions in Västerås and Skellefteå on a rehiring programme. Many of Northvolt's former workers lost their jobs when the Swedish company collapsed into bankruptcy proceedings. Battery Storage Meets AI: The Skellefteå Industrial Hub Perhaps the most striking element of Lyten's announcement is its plan to transform the Skellefteå site into a combined industrial and data centre campus. The vision calls for co-located AI data centres alongside battery manufacturing, powered by nearby hydroelectric generation and backed by Lyten's own battery storage systems. Lyten envisions a combined data centre and battery manufacturing campus in northern Sweden. Image: AI-generated Data centre developer EdgeConneX intends to acquire a site at the Lyten Industrial Hub with the potential to scale to a 1GW campus. That figure would place it among the largest data centre developments in the Nordics, a region increasingly favored for hyperscale computing thanks to cold climates and abundant renewable energy. The convergence of battery storage and data centre infrastructure reflects a broader industry trend. Across the Atlantic, utility Xcel Energy recently announced plans to install 30GWh of Form Energy's iron-air batteries at a Google data centre in Pine Island, Minnesota. As AI workloads drive unprecedented power demand, battery storage is becoming a core part of the data centre power stack, not just for backup but for load management and grid services. 1 GW Planned data centre campus capacity at Skellefteå 30 GWh Form Energy iron-air batteries for Google data centre 600+ Potential new hires at Lyten's Swedish operations Eos Energy Eyes Profitability After Turbulent 2025 In other industry news, zinc battery manufacturer Eos Energy released its Q4 and full-year 2025 financial results, painting a mixed picture of heavy losses and growing momentum. The company reported 2025 revenue of US$114.2 million against a net loss of US$969.6 million, though 77% of that loss (US$746.8 million) came from non-cash items like fair value adjustments and stock-based compensation. Battery manufacturers are scaling production capacity as order backlogs grow. Image: AI-generated The positive signals: Eos ended the year with US$624.6 million in cash and an order backlog of US$701.5 million (2.8GWh), up 9% from the previous quarter. Annual production capacity reached 2GWh at its Marshall Township, Pennsylvania facility. The company is investing US$352.9 million in new manufacturing lines and relocating its headquarters from New Jersey to Pennsylvania, supported by US$22 million in state incentives. CEO Joe Mastrangelo struck an optimistic tone, calling 2025 "a structural turning point" and projecting 2026 revenue between US$300 million and US$400 million. The company also stated that "substantial doubt regarding the Company's ability to continue as a going concern no longer exists," a notable improvement from prior financial disclosures. Eos represents the broader challenge facing non-lithium battery startups: massive capital requirements, long timelines to profitability, and the need to prove that alternative chemistries can compete with lithium-ion's established supply chains and falling costs. The Storage Sector's Growing Footprint The first week of March 2026 reinforces a clear pattern in the energy storage industry. Projects are getting bigger, financing is flowing, and the use cases are expanding beyond traditional grid services into data centres and industrial hubs. Canada's Hagersville project shows that gigawatt-hour-scale storage is no longer experimental. Lyten's Northvolt acquisition demonstrates how battery manufacturing assets can find second lives, even after high-profile bankruptcies. The Bottom Line: Energy storage is moving from the periphery of the power sector to its center. The question is no longer whether batteries will play a major role in the grid, but how fast manufacturing can scale to meet demand. With the Energy Storage Summit 2026 wrapping up and the US Energy Storage Summit scheduled for later this month in Dallas, the industry enters spring with strong tailwinds and a packed project pipeline.