Who will win in Long-Duration Energy Storage (LDES)?
- Emin Askerov
- Sep 12
- 2 min read
Every few weeks, I see news on long-duration energy storage—compressed air, flow batteries, thermal, and hydrogen. Yesterday, a post by Ilja Pawel made me think harder about LDES. So let me distil my thoughts in this post, and come back to it in 10 years, to see how it plays out:
Today, there is no real market for LDES.
There is a market for up to 4 hours of storage—and lithium-ion rules there.
The actual LDES market will only emerge when renewables consistently push past ~60% of generation in a grid. Until then, the cheapest way to back up renewables remains… natural gas turbines. LNG can be stored indefinitely, and gas plants are proven, fast to build, and relatively low-CAPEX.
📊 The chart below compares LCOE in Denmark, 2025 (Europe’s most renewable-heavy grid):
Natural Gas CCGT: €90–105/MWh is still the most cost-effective option
Flow Batteries: €165–177/MWh, currently the best LDES option
Other LDES (hydrogen, thermal, CAES): higher costs today, and maybe some strategic value
The gap is clear: natural gas is cheaper, but it comes with emissions and carbon costs, which I think we can perfectly tolerate.
So my bet?
Next 10 years: Gas + lithium-ion will dominate.
Beyond that: As renewables rise and LDES costs fall, flow batteries, thermal storage, and hydrogen might gradually take the role that gas peakers play today. But that’s far from certain.
This analysis was done with the help of Claude AI - https://claude.ai/public/artifacts/e5fdb64a-7ae6-4178-a5ee-1b0c5cbfc36f
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