Report Says Up to 140 TWh of Long-Duration Energy Storage Needed to Enable Grid Net Zero by 2040

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ESS, a US manufacturer of long-duration batteries for utility-scale and commercial energy storage applications, announced the publication of the Long-Duration Energy Storage (LDES) Council’s LDES report, with ESS as a contributing author and founding member. The LDES report documents how the world’s power systems can become carbon net-zero by deploying long-duration energy storage systems to store renewable power such as wind and solar.

The newly formed CEO-led Council, which debuted at COP 26, published the report to detail the application of LDES technologies, the flexibility requirements needed in high-renewables future power grids, and the investment and unlocks required.

The report provides information for governments and grid operators on how LDES technologies can help achieve decarbonization at the lowest overall cost to society. It offers the following conclusions and deployment suggestions:

• 85-140 TWh of long-duration energy storage (>8 hours) can be deployed globally by 2040 to enable power grids to become carbon net-zero, eliminating between 1.5 to 2.3 Gt of CO2 currently produced annually. This will require an estimated investment of $1.5 trillion to $3 trillion.
• With LDES, renewable sources (rather than fossil fuels) can address grid energy imbalances, which is equivalent to 10-15% of total emissions in today’s power sector.
• A suggested LDES deployment plan over the next decades can coincide with recent pledges to deliver net-zero nationally, including the commitment by the UK for a net-zero power system by 2035, and similar commitments by the US, Australia, and India with later timescales.
• There is increasing momentum behind LDES deployments, with around $3 billion invested in LDES technology companies in the last five years, and an expected 25-35 GW/1TWh of capacity to be deployed globally by 2025 with approximately $50 billion investment.

ESS collaborated with 24 other founding Council members in creating the report. The Council’s findings were based on advanced power systems modeling using more than 10,000 data points supplied by LDES Council technology providers. The findings were developed in collaboration with McKinsey & Company as its knowledge partner, who supported insight development and analysis.

To view the full LDES report, visit ldescouncil.com/publication.