Flexible, fast-responding and reliable – the growth of energy storage seems unstoppable. What could possibly go wrong?
The Energy Gang
Wood Mackenzie
4.6 • 1.3K Ratings
🗓️ 4 March 2025
⏱️ 58 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Charge when it’s cheap, when energy is abundant, and discharge when the energy is needed.
The role of energy storage will be critical to the transition to low-carbon technologies. It’s an exciting time in the industry, with spectacular growth in battery storage markets in the US and around the world, and it’s predicted to continue. “We’re in the hockey stick growth phase,” says Swetha Sundaram, VP of solar and BESS (battery energy storage systems) at RWE, and a co-author of ‘The BESS Book’. She joins Ed Crooks on the show to look at where that growth is coming from.
The systems being built today mostly use lithium-ion technologies to store energy for a few hours. But there are huge opportunities for long-duration energy storage (LDES), too. The LDES Council, an industry group, estimates that the build-out of up to 8 TW of potential power supply from long-duration storage by 2040 represents a $4 trillion investment opportunity. Julia Souder is CEO of the LDES council, and she’s also on the show to talk about the next generation of storage.
Julia, Swetha and Ed are also joined by Energy Gang regular Melissa Lott, a Partner General Manager at Microsoft. She’s a PhD energy systems engineer, and she explains the different roles short and long-duration energy storage will have in the energy transition and the power grid of the future.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | 2024 was a record year for solar growth and 2025 is shaping up to be just as important. |
| 0:06.0 | Policy changes lie ahead. Woodmackenzie's 18th annual solar and energy storage summit is back |
| 0:12.0 | in Denver, Colorado on April the 23rd and 24th. Join over 400 industry leaders to debate and discuss |
| 0:18.8 | how to tackle the key challenges and opportunities |
| 0:21.1 | for solar. The conversations will cover evolving policies, supply chains, tax credits, project |
| 0:26.7 | development and innovative technologies. Build critical connections with decision makers and gain |
| 0:32.0 | insights to drive your projects forward. So head to woodmack.com slash events to get your ticket. |
| 0:49.0 | Hello and welcome to The Energy Gang, a discussion show from Wood Mackenzie about the fast changing world of energy. I'm Ed Crooks. And today we're going to be talking about |
| 0:53.3 | energy storage. |
| 0:55.0 | Very exciting industry at the moment, seeing spectacular growth, but also facing some very clear challenges. |
| 1:02.0 | And certainly its future is absolutely critical to the transition to low carbon energy. |
| 1:07.0 | Talk about that. It's a great pleasure, as always, to welcome Melissa Lott, who's the partner general manager for Energy Technologies at Microsoft. |
| 1:13.3 | Hi, Melissa. How are you? |
| 1:14.4 | Hey, it's great to see you. I'm looking out the window right now, and it is a gorgeous sunny day where I'm sitting today. |
| 1:21.0 | So really looking forward to this conversation with this beautiful view I got going on. |
| 1:24.1 | And as usual, of course, we have to issue the standard disclaimer. |
| 1:27.5 | Anything you say is entire your own opinion and not necessarily the views of Microsoft |
| 1:32.4 | Corporation, et cetera, et cetera. |
| 1:34.2 | But I'd say just to get that out of the way. |
| 1:36.4 | And we also have two brand new guests on the energy gang. |
| 1:39.9 | Schwetter Sundrum is the vice president for solar and BESS hybrid systems at RWE. |
| 1:46.0 | Hi, Shweta, welcome to the show. |
... |
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