Accelerating Renewable Energy with Long Duration Energy Storage: A Powerful Hybrid Solution

The transition to renewable energy sources is a crucial step towards building a clean energy future, but without solutions to manage intermittency, this shift remains incomplete. Long Duration Energy Storage (LDES) emerges as a critical element in providing continuous access to clean energy, adapting to the variability of renewable energy supply and demand. The World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD) has launched a new brief highlighting the potential of LDES in unlocking the full potential of renewables.

Key Takeaways:

• Overcome barriers to LDES deployment: Businesses face significant challenges when scaling LDES technologies, and the brief recommends actions to address them, including overcoming regulatory and financial barriers.
• Co-location is key: Combining LDES with renewable energy creates a more resilient energy infrastructure for the future, securing firmed generation and reducing energy costs.
• A call for bold action: The brief urges businesses, policymakers, and regulators to rethink how they approach energy storage and renewable energy, integrating LDES into business strategies and policy incentives.
• Policy and financial recommendations: Policymakers should develop policies and incentives to make LDES projects more attractive, while investors should integrate these solutions into their investment strategies.
• Business benefits: Companies can take the lead in integrating LDES into their investment or procurement strategies, unlocking new revenue streams, strengthening renewable project value, and fast-tracking co-located LDES opportunities.
• Government and regulatory actions: Governments and regulators must define LDES in legal frameworks, remove regulatory barriers, and align incentives with system value.

Statistics:

• To unlock the full potential of LDES, the brief calls on policymakers to develop policies and incentives that will make LDES projects more attractive by 2030.
• The combination of LDES with renewables is a powerful hybrid solution that can help build a resilient, decarbonized energy system with expected impact on energy costs, procurement models, and carbon accounting.
• The brief highlights that LDES is a strategic enabler of the energy transition, not only providing a technical solution but also enabling the integration of renewable energy sources at scale.

Sources:

• World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD). "Navigating the investment case for co-located long-duration energy storage: Delivering 3x Renewables by 2030"
• ERM. "Smart Energy Systems" [no date provided]
• Celine Le Goazigo, Energy Lead at WBCSD
• Foaad Tahir, Associate Partner and Smart Energy Systems Lead at ERM