Long Duration Energy Storage LDES Markets 2023-2043: Grid, Microgrid Delayed Electricity 6 Hours to Seasonal

Long Duration Energy Storage Brings Surprises, Major New Markets

Grids and microgrids waste precious wind and solar power at times of excess. That will get worse as they adopt a higher percentage notably of solar because it drops fastest in cost and is anyway best for emerging nations because they are mostly in the tropics. The antidote is analysed in the uniquely comprehensive report, “Long Duration Energy Storage LDES Markets 2023-2043: Grid, Microgrid Delayed Electricity 6 Hours to Seasonal”. Free of excessive mathematics and nostalgia, the report gives deep commercial insights for investors, industry - from material suppliers to system operators - and other potential participants. See many new infograms, comparison charts, roadmaps and graphs, with terms explained both in the glossary and the text. Learn underinvested sectors and gaps in the market. 

Two things matter most: the delay time to cover such things as solar dead at night, wind dead for weeks, and the duration of subsequent discharge at full rating which is a similar or somewhat lower figure taken as GWh divided by GW. It is a moving target. Today energy storage for 6-10 hours is a major new market but as the percentage of wind and solar in a system increases, longer needs become substantial. For example, UK electricity prices jumped in 2020 partly because wind was dead for months. The need will change right up to seasonal storage for solar feeble in winter creating its own huge storage market within 15 years. Broadly speaking, the longer the delay the more electricity must be stored and therefore that costs must drop, eventually 90%. Your radically new approaches are eagerly sought, from materials to systems.

The report surfaces many surprises. For instance, some of the 11 main candidate technology families can perform both long and short-term storage in one system and some cannot. That should be factored into investment decisions. Almost continuous zero-emission sources are costed in isolation and starved of money but sometimes they can be lower cost - taken holistically - than a purely storage solution. Think advanced geothermal, ocean power, later solar from outer space and others in the report. 

Another surprise is that there may even be a market for storage beyond seasonal. We have strategic oil and gas reserves stored for years and discharging for a month or two. As electricity takes over, it is both logical and potentially practicable to consider strategic electricity reserves. 

Probable winning technologies are identified in the emerging $250 billion market, those with a large secondary opportunity and two losers. The report finds that some storage technologies are underfunded given their huge potential. One is pumped hydro storage reinvented for wider deployment - in mines, pressurised into rock, under water, even using heavy water up mere hills. Citing research and interviews, the report shows why it is wrong to assume technologies such as compressed air cannot viably perform seasonal storage in due course but it identifies hidden environmental and other risks with some other strongly promoted options. 

The 24 page Executive Summary and Conclusions is sufficient for those with limited time. It explains the basics and gives key conclusions, new infograms, comparison charts, 20 year roadmaps and forecasts.

Chapter 2. Introduction, in 48 pages, explains the strong move to electrification and why the hydrogen economy is secondary to this. See minigrids and grids are involved and how adding some less-intermittent zero-emission alternative generation, smart grids and load management will help but not enough. Learn the types of intermittency relevant to energy storage, from 6 hours to seasonal, matched to the Long Duration Energy Storage LDES landscape that is the subject of the report and its toolkit of technology families and suitability by duration time. Appreciate the dimensions of longer delay, longer duration, more GWh progresses and the storage to cope with both that and also with long term demand fluctuation. The neglected topic of underwater long term energy storage is introduced in many potential forms with SWOT appraisal.

Chapter 3. Long Duration Energy Storage in 23 closely packed pages looks more closely at the definitions and technology landscape. It is more technical, explaining the metrics such as levelized cost of storage and why claimed figures should be treated with great caution, giving many examples. 12 technology choices in six families are tabled in many parameters. Central to this chapter are seven detailed plots of the technology options against two parameters with commentary and trends. Examples include LCOS vs storage time, power and capacity vs duration, available sites vs space efficiency, compressed vs liquid air for the many options as expected 2023-2043. This chapter ends with a detailed new analysis - presented as table and pie chart - of the activities and dreams of the LDES Council members and what it tells us. The chapter ends with a SWOT appraisal of long duration energy storage LDES 2023-2043.

Chapter 4 through 11 are deep dives into the main technology options each with company profiles, a table of 17 parameters expected and SWOT appraisal. Each page is packed with detailed information in infograms, system diagrams and so on. They are:

• Compressed air energy storage CAES 48 pages 
• Liquefied gas energy storage: Liquid air LAES or CO2 22 pages
• Redox flow battery energy storage RFB 27 pages
• Hydrogen, ammonia, methane intermediary LDES 28 pages
• Pumped hydro conventional and reinvented 29 pages
• Solid gravity energy storage 18 pages
• Thermal energy storage ETES (electricity-to-electricity) 12 pages
• LDES with conventional battery structure 17 pages

One trillion dollars will be invested in LDES well before 2050 and trillions saved. National competitiveness, security, prosperity and well-being are at stake. Get in at the start by reading the only up-to-date, comprehensive, perceptive review and 20 year prediction of the whole subject.