As governments around the world grapple with the urgent conundrum of how simultaneously to make their supplies more secure, greener and cheaper, energy storage stalwart Alan Greenshields is worried that what he terms the “missing piece” of the puzzle isn’t drowned out by the buzz around other transition technologies – wind, solar, lithium-ion batteries, and loudest of all, hydrogen. The weapon in the energy transition arsenal Greenshields is referring to is long-duration energy storage (LDES), a suite of technologies set to fill a crucial role in an increasingly complex, renewables-led power system (see panel) sitting between shorter-duration lithium-ion systems and massive deployments based around hydrogen or hydropower. “Renewables have become the cheapest form of generation. Lithium-ion has done a fantastic job for mostly regulation functions in the grid, but we need…
‘Long-duration energy storage can be deployed faster and more cheaply than green hydrogen’
