Geneva, 1 July 2025: Accelerating renewable energy is vital in building a clean energy future – but it’s not the whole story. Without solutions to manage intermittency, the shift to renewable energy remains incomplete. That’s where Long Duration Energy Storage (LDES) comes in: storage solutions can provide continuous access to clean energy, while also adapting to the variability of renewable energy supply and demand.

At London Climate Action Week , the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD), in partnership with ERM and leading energy companies, launched a new brief: “Navigating the investment case for co-located long-duration energy storage: Delivering 3x Renewables by 2030”.  

The publication emphasizes that to unlock the full potential of renewables, we must scale LDES technologies, which help store excess renewable energy for use when demand is high and supply is low.

The combination of LDES with renewables is a powerful hybrid solution that the world must deploy to ensure a steady, reliable energy supply and reduce emissions. 

As we move toward high-renewable grids, LDES provides the flexibility needed to build a resilient, decarbonized energy system, with expected impact on energy costs, procurement models and carbon accounting. WBCSD members are already demonstrating the power of aggregated business action to scale these solutions, showing that industry leadership can accelerate the transition to smarter, cleaner energy systems.

– Celine Le Goazigo, Energy Lead at WBCSD

The new brief is aimed for business development teams, investors, senior decision-makers and government agencies.

Key takeaways: 

• Overcome barriers to LDES deployment: The brief highlights the major challenges businesses face when scaling LDES technologies and recommends actions to address them. 
• Why co-location is key: Combining LDES with renewable energy is an opportunity for businesses to secure firmed generation and helps create a more resilient energy infrastructure for the future. 
• A call for bold action: The brief urges businesses, policymakers and regulators to rethink how they approach energy storage and renewable energy. By integrating LDES into business strategies and policy incentives, we can make significant progress toward sustainability and climate targets. 
• Policy and financial recommendations: To help unlock the full potential of LDES, the brief calls on policymakers to develop policies and incentives that will make LDES projects more attractive, as well as investors to integrate these solutions into investment strategies.

The brief provides insights on how businesses can take the lead in integrating LDES in their investment or procurement strategies, and how policymakers can establish the necessary conditions to foster investment in these technologies. In particular:

• Business development teams can use this brief to unlock new revenue streams, strengthen renewable project value, and fast-track co-located LDES opportunities within their renewable portfolios.
• Investors should explore how LDES can bring long-term value to their energy portfolios and tap into new, diversified revenue streams while supporting grid resilience and ESG goals.
• Senior decision-makers in companies should integrate LDES into their business strategies, by assessing its potential to reduce Scope 1–3 emissions, mandate internal reviews of LDES eligibility within their portfolios and signal corporate leadership by participating in initiatives promoting LDES visibility.
• Governments and regulators must urgently define LDES in legal frameworks, remove regulatory barriers to co-location (e.g. grid connection constraints, taxation), and align incentives with system value. They should also set national targets for LDES in NDCs, simplify permitting, and mainstream support tools such as 24/7 PPAs, time-stamped Guarantees of Origin (GO), and Contracts for Difference (CfD) tailored to LDES.

LDES is critical to achieving a cost optimal net zero for the power sector, enabling efficient use of variable renewable generation via curtailment reduction as well as displacing dispatchable capacity and generation. These infrastructure and operational savings can reduce the cost of electricity supply and help to accelerate the wider decarbonization of the energy system.

– Foaad Tahir, Associate Partner and Smart Energy Systems Lead at ERM

By enabling the integration of renewable energy sources at scale, LDES is key to achieving the global goal of tripling renewables, supporting businesses in managing intermittent energy supply, and providing a reliable, low-carbon energy alternative.

Companies and investors who lead in LDES deployment will not only contribute meaningfully to a sustainable future but be well-positioned to capture long-term value, drive innovation, and secure the business case for renewables. LDES is not only a technical solution, but also a strategic enabler of the energy transition.