Cleaner Tech
How China Built a Big Lead in Global Race for Batteries That Last for Days
Long-duration storage is yet another area where Beijing is charging ahead of other countries.
An enclosure that will house long-duration storage company Form Energy’s iron-air battery modules.
Photographer: Poppy Lynch/BloombergChina is quietly dominating yet another area of the global energy transition: long-duration energy storage.
Unlike conventional lithium-ion batteries that typically store power for four hours or shorter, long-duration energy storage, or LDES, can hold and release electricity for many more hours or even days. As intermittent renewables become a bigger part of the global power supply, LDES is badly needed to help balance energy supply and demand, and China is racing ahead of the rest of the world.