Anthony Price reports from the Energy Storage Global Conference held in Brussels in October. Delegates heard the energy-only market has had its time and long duration energy storage is part of the solution.

In just a few simple sentences, the mood of the conference hall changed. Patrick Clerens – the Secretary General of the European Association for the Storage of Energy (EASE) had assembled politicians and European Commission officials to come and talk to the energy storage industry and, indeed, the wider power sector at the Energy Storage Global Conference in Brussels in October 2022.
The scene was set for Catharina Sikow-Magny, Director of Green Transition and Energy System Integration at the European Commission to talk about the current political and economic position in Europe. She acknowledged the failure of the current energy structure in Europe that had been so carefully assembled over many years.
Energy-only market had its time

The structures could not accommodate the pressures on the gas market from restricted supplies, the lack of alternative generation to meet base load requirement and the huge inflationary costs incurred in the wholesale markets which was leading to the collapse or near collapse of many energy companies. She said: “The so-called energy-only market has had its time. We need to fully agree that we need long-term markets. We need a review of how the capacity remuneration mechanism works.”
This was recognition that things had to change – and a great opportunity for the energy storage community to seize the opportunity and make changes happen.
Earlier that morning, David Post, President of EASE and Head of Sales & Marketing for Distributed Energy Solutions at Enel X, welcomed members and other delegates to the ESGC. The previous conference in 2021 was at a time when the world was gripped by its concerns of the pandemic. This conference was focused on energy security challenges, high electricity bills and empty talk concerning energy and sustainability.
War in Ukraine had made us sit up and try and work out a new plan to solve the energy trilemma. Post prioritised a technology neutral approach in using energy storage to achieve our energy ambitions.
EASE has taken a strong position with its promotion of energy storage – saying that in Europe alone, 14GW of new storage projects must be installed annually if the EU is to meet its 2030 climate goals. The need for change in the power infrastructure is obvious. When Maroš Šefčovič, Vice-President of the European Commission in charge of inter-institutional relations and foresight, gave his opening keynote address it was clear that he was speaking to a welcoming audience. He was appreciative of the invitation – commenting that in the 10 years of EASE, the energy storage industry had become mainstream.

More energy storage solutions in Europe needed
He highlighted the impact of the current energy crisis on the whole of society – increased costs of manufacturing and food, leading to widespread disruption. More than 300 delegates heard him say that the “deployment of energy storage solutions in Europe must accelerate.” He recognised that that energy storage “… will help facilitate the integration of renewables and the electrification of the economy, while increasing the flexibility and security of the energy system.” He asked for the energy storage community to be active in the consultation phases with the Commission – which had a very broad remit – looking at supply chain issues, skills, employment as well as recycling and sustainability. Many had waited a long time to hear such positive words from a high-ranking member of the European Commission, and this set the tone for the day’s discussion on policy.
Commissioner Šefčovič gave energy storage a key role in decarbonising the economy, reinforcing the EU’s resilience and achieving strategic energy autonomy. Now that energy storage is on the Commission’s energy policy agenda, the hard work starts in getting real change. EASE’s energy storage targets are part of the process of achieving the EU’s low carbon target, but change will be needed to get the storage targets adopted as well.
Energy storage against severe weather
Outside Europe, energy storage is also high on the agenda. Mike Gravely, a keen supporter and enthusiast for energy storage gave the second keynote address. Gravely is the Team Lead for Energy Technology System Integration at the California Energy Commission and has many years’ experience of working on the technical, commercial, regulatory and political aspects of energy storage.
California is an interesting case study for energy technologies. See our story on pages 58-64. Gravely described the important role that energy storage had in California’s clean energy future: “Without energy storage, we would not have been able to tackle the extreme weather events that have hit California in the past weeks.”
Develop the energy storage narrative

Claudia Gamon, an Austrian MEP with several years’ interest following energy storage, supported California’s stance in investing in new technology. She said that the European reliance on fossil fuels has led to the current liability in foreign policy. She exhorted the conference to develop the narrative for energy storage – speeding up permitting and getting storage on to the political agenda were big priorities.
She questioned why there was a strategy for hydrogen deployment, but no European strategy for energy storage. She said that the EU must be able to store at least six times the amount of electricity that it currently can. This needed a clear market design, incentives for storage and accelerated permitting.
This is the point where energy storage meets the energy market. And the questions to be resolved focus on how to achieve energy security and what the developers of energy storage can do. This was the ideal background for more presentations from sector experts, linked with panel discussions on the political support required for energy storage uptake, energy market design, energy storage policy implementation and the decarbonisation of the energy system.
Lack of clear investment signals
There was strong agreement, including support from speakers representing EDF and Fluence, that the two main barriers were the lack of clear investment signals and the need for reform of the energy market. While it was welcome to have the agreement from the Commission that market design reform was needed, investors and developers wanted to know the direction, pressing for the right long-term signals to make the right investments. There was a particularly strong case made for the role of longer duration energy storage (LDES).
Recognising the problems

Roberto Zangrandi, Secretary General of the European Distribution System Operators for smart grid, welcomed the support from the EU institutions in recognising the problems. When it is almost impossible to connect renewable generation anywhere in the Netherlands, clearly things have to be made better, he said. There was a need to simplify the path between renewable generation, storage, and the use of electricity – otherwise problems would increase.

Day two opened with Manuel Baritaud, Senior Economist at the European Investment Bank, reviewing the economic viability of energy storage technologies and funding opportunities. While the short-term focus is on energy security and affordability, in the longer term the renewables sector was likely to drive energy storage investment, he said. Storage can substitute for generation, transmission, and distribution assets, and eventually LDES in combination with renewables would replace natural gas capacity.
Minimising curtailment

Some thoughts on maximising generation and minimising curtailment were given by Chris Matson, Partner at LCP Delta. Quoting from data for Great Britain he gave the example of 6 October 2022, when 26% of wind generation was curtailed. Some 7.6TWh of generation was curtailed over the past year.
Besides wasting precious renewable energy, the costs arise from turning up other generation to compensate for the loss of production. Matson and many of the following speakers referred to the ongoing need to address curtailment, increase renewable generation to reach the EU targets for lower carbon generation and to bring about more LDES. The linkage with the power markets was important and the development of both better capacity markets and upgraded markets for flexibility were both crucial.

Philipp Offenberg, Senior Manager Europe at Breakthrough Energy re-iterated the need for market reform. Energy storage had the potential to reduce natural gas consumption at peak times, improving the overall efficiency of the whole energy system, he said.
Longer duration storage
Breakthrough Energy was interested in longer duration storage (eight hours duration or longer) and this included thermal flow batteries (which were interesting because of their longer lifetimes) and the iron air system.
He said we could not allow the current energy crisis to last for 10 years and believes that LDES could solve Europe’s energy shortfall. His enthusiasm was backed up by estimates from Aurora, whose recent reports had shown that adding 15GW of LDES in Germany would bring $24 billion of benefits. This would be from reducing power system costs, increasing use of renewable energy, and reducing hydrogen consumption.
The inherent case for using LDES as a means to elimination of peaking plant and providing energy security from renewable energy is as sound as a bell.
Energy security and decarbonisation

The conference’s final day, mostly covering the more technical side of energy storage, was opened by Piotr Szymański, Director at the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre (JRC). He gave an insight into the JRC’s vision for energy storage. Tudor Constantinescu, the Principal Adviser to the Director General for Energy at the European Commission, offered a whirlwind tour of energy storage technologies by starting with pumped hydro storage and then moving to batteries and the issues of integration.

It was not a case of technologies working against each other in competition, but systems working together to achieve energy security and decarbonisation, he said. The demand for flexibility increases exponentially with new renewable generation, and we would need a strong business case for storage along with a market design for a multitude of services.
Constantinescu also referred to the supply chain, commenting on the benefits of manufacturing and the competitive advantage this would bring to host nations. Linking value chains to manufacturing capacity would bring jobs and achieve clean energy targets. They would then provide a critical mass of technology for the energy transition.
Delegates replied with the call for more investment in storage manufacturing capacity. Other speakers referred to new business models for behind-the-meter storage, the role of distributed storage and energy trading and the importance of data gathering, collection and processing.
LDES a critical piece of energy jigsaw
Prior to the conference’s closing comments from EASE’s president David Post, there was much discussion in the panel sessions and presentations across two parallel tracks. Coverage of storage applications, business opportunities and technologies provided good food for thought.
There was good support for the development and deployment of LDES, a critical piece of energy jigsaw. Post sent the delegates away with his clear summary of the conference: a game changing mindset from the world’s politicians, the changes in the energy industry caused by mega trends in the industry triggered by recent events and a very optimistic future for energy storage.