Long Duration Energy Storage Council (LDES) is a global organization that brings together companies, policymakers, and investors to accelerate the deployment of energy storage technologies capable of storing energy for eight hours or longer, helping improve grid reliability, resilience, and renewable energy integration.
Could you briefly tell us about the history of the Long Duration Energy Storage (LDES) Council and why long duration energy storage has become such an important topic?
The Long Duration Energy Storage Council was launched at COP26 with a report highlighting the market value of net-zero power. From the beginning, our goal was to demonstrate that this is a substantial market opportunity supported by real data. Our analysis showed that more than $4 trillion in capital investment could generate approximately $540 billion in annual savings while enabling the flexibility needed for a net-zero energy system.
Over the past four years, awareness has grown significantly. Governments, regulators, and customers increasingly recognize the importance of reliability, resilience, and flexibility. Long duration energy storage helps store low-cost power or heat when it is available and deliver it hours, days, or even weeks later. We define long duration as eight hours or more, and the technologies can support a wide range of applications across manufacturing, agriculture, ports, industrial facilities, and grid infrastructure.
Are traditional lithium-ion batteries the right solution for long duration energy storage, or are alternatives emerging?
We take a technology-agnostic approach because different technologies serve different purposes. Some lithium-ion systems can provide storage beyond eight hours, but there are trade-offs involving cost, energy density, and duration. That is why it is important to maintain a diverse portfolio of technologies that can meet different customer and grid requirements.
Beyond lithium-ion, we are seeing increasing interest in technologies based on iron, air, carbon, water, and salt. These solutions can provide different benefits, including frequency response, inertia, grid balancing, and supply chain diversification. The key point is that different technologies offer different value propositions, and no single solution will meet every need.
Has the rise of AI increased the importance of long duration energy storage, and what role are technology companies playing in this transition?
AI has become a major driver of electricity demand. What started as a technology challenge is rapidly becoming an infrastructure challenge. As data centers continue to expand, long duration energy storage is increasingly viewed as an infrastructure solution that can provide flexibility, reliability, and congestion relief across the grid.
Technology companies such as Google, Microsoft, and AWS are playing an important role because they recognize that transmission infrastructure takes years to build. Long duration storage can help bridge that gap by providing flexibility and relieving congestion while new infrastructure is developed. With the right policies in place, many storage technologies can be deployed relatively quickly and help meet growing demand.
Can you provide an example of how policy is supporting long duration energy storage deployment?
Virginia is a good example. With more than 600 data centers, the state faces significant reliability and cost challenges. Working alongside partners, we helped support legislation that would establish a specific long duration energy storage mandate of 4.5 gigawatts by 2045, with a minimum duration requirement of 10 hours.
Policies like these create investment certainty and provide the regulatory framework needed to accelerate deployment. They complement the growing number of partnerships and commercial agreements being announced across the industry, helping create stronger pathways to scale, secure financing, and develop new approaches to permitting and grid integration.
Do you think AI is helping reframe the conversation around energy storage, particularly in the current political environment?
Ultimately, the conversation comes down to economics. Everyone wants reliable, low-cost energy services, and the question is how those services are delivered and financed. Our focus has been on demonstrating the value that long duration energy storage can provide across different market scenarios and showing that it can generate bankable revenue streams.
Around the world, we are seeing different market structures emerge to support deployment. Whether through procurement targets, capacity markets, public-private partnerships, or innovative regulatory frameworks, the objective is the same: to create mechanisms that recognize the value of long duration storage and enable it to scale more rapidly.
What message would you give to a hyperscaler or data center operator that has not yet considered long duration energy storage as part of its power strategy?
First, long duration energy storage is an investable and reliable solution that is available today. Globally, more than 15 gigawatt-hours have already been deployed, representing significant growth. At the LDES Council, we track over 10.1 gigawatts of installed capacity worldwide. These are not small pilot projects; they are real assets providing value today.
Second, long duration storage offers flexibility for a wide range of operating models. For example, a data center running alongside a gas plant can use storage to reduce fuel consumption during periods of high electricity prices. Finally, when supported by the right market structures and procurement frameworks, these technologies can generate substantial cost savings while improving system reliability.
Many people still perceive long duration storage as a pre-commercial technology. How accurate is that perception?
It is true that some companies in the sector are still at the pilot stage, but many others are publicly listed businesses that have deployed projects around the world and are already delivering value today. One of the biggest misconceptions is that long duration storage remains a future technology when, in reality, many commercial projects are already operating successfully.
The challenge is no longer proving that the technology works. The challenge is scaling deployment. We need stronger market signals, better investment frameworks, and greater awareness of the benefits these technologies provide. Once those elements are in place, the industry can move much more quickly.
What are the main commercialization challenges facing emerging long duration storage technologies today?
One encouraging sign is the broad range of organizations supporting the sector. Alongside technology and data center companies, members include major industrial and energy companies such as Rio Tinto, Alfa Laval, SLB, Ørsted, Exxon, and Shell. Their involvement reflects the fact that long duration storage is increasingly viewed as a core infrastructure investment rather than simply a climate solution.
The market signals are becoming stronger, but more work is needed to ensure that the value provided by long duration storage is properly recognized and compensated. Whether through waste heat recovery, grid services, resilience, or energy cost savings, these technologies deliver benefits across multiple sectors. The industry has demonstrated that it can deploy projects today; now it needs the policy support, investment frameworks, and market mechanisms required to scale.
