Long-Duration Energy Storage - What's Holding it Back, When Will it Break Through?

Susan Taylor is a Senior Research Analyst with the batteries and energy storage team at S&P Global Commodity Insights. She provides research coverage on energy storage markets across Europe and Africa with a particular focus on emerging technologies. Prior to joining S&P Global, she worked as an analyst supporting the policy team at the European Association for Storage of Energy (EASE) based in Brussels. She has a strong R&D background in battery materials and holds a PhD in chemistry from ETH Zurich.

Laurent Segalen is a franco-british clean energy investment banker. He is the founder of Megawatt-X, the London-based Energy Transition investment platform, which he currently heads. Laurent has been trading and investing billions of Euros in Clean Energy over more than two decades. Recent deals include PPA digital platform Zeigo, successfully sold to Schneider Electric; MARES interconnector, sub sea cable from Dublin to Liverpool, successfully sold to Foresight; Febesol, a leading German Rooftop Solar installer; Renewabl, a London-based Green Certificate platform; Abloco, a Dutch-based mobile batteries leasing company His career in Clean Energy spans over 25 years, from Director at pwc, Fund Manager at Mirova (Natixis) to Managing Director Clean Commodities at Lehman Brothers then Nomura. He was awarded Environmental Deal of the Year 2006 by Environmental Finance. While trading carbon, he was one of the co-authors of "scope 1, scope 2, scope 3" emissions concept and helped create the European Trading System. He is now special adviser to the Board of IC-VCM (The Integrity Council for Voluntary Carbon Markets), and founding member of EnergyTag, a non-profit organization promoting hourly matching of Renewable Energy certificates. Finally, Laurent co-hosts the award-winning podcast Redefining Energy with Gerard Reid. Launched in 2018, the podcast has now been downloaded more than 1.2m times.

Wilhelm Löwenhielm is a Senior Director at Northvolt, Europe's fastest growing battery producer delivering battery cells and systems from its factories in Sweden and Poland. Mr Löwenhielm oversees business development and product management in Northvolt's ESS Business Area, with a focus on the company's next generation Na-ion technology platform. Prior to joining Northvolt, Mr. Löwenhielm worked as a junior partner at the Boston Consulting Group and co-founded Alight, a European solar corporate PPA pioneer. He has also served as the Chairman of the Swedish Solar Energy Association,

Oliver Schmidt is a clean energy expert with a focus on energy storage and solar. He published the book Monetizing Energy Storage and the online analysis platform www.EnergyStorage.ninja. He is also the founder and CEO of dvlp.energy, a software company supporting developers of renewable energy projects, and has previous experience as project manager and analyst at Apricum, the IEA and E.ON.

Julia has over 20 years of experience in the energy and environmental sectors. She is a longtime advocate of clean energy technologies, working extensively to support the global environment and equitable policies. The LDES Council works with its diverse membership to commercialize and scale the long duration energy storage market. Previously she founded and was president of a strategic consulting company JASenergies and held senior leadership positions at the National Resources Defense Council working on coalition building and transmission planning, as a developer at Clean Line Energy Partners, a regulator at the North American Electric Reliability Corporation, and as director of grid infrastructure planning and coordination for the U.S. Department of Energy.

Jan Andersson believes in data transparency and collaboration. He takes the position that people are smart and capable of acting on all available information. Bringing all relevant data to the decision table is, therefore, the means by which Jan feels he can make a difference. As Sumitomo SHI FW's Director Global Market Development, Jan has worked extensively in the European, Indian and Australian markets to facilitate the change to more sustainable, decarbonised power systems. Jan is a problem-solver and a down-to-earth idea generator who outlines the big picture before jumping to conclusions. With his broad knowledge in energy technologies, e.g. energy storage, Power systems and modelling, as well as his understanding of energy trading and finance, Jan brings clarity on how things are connected. He believes that the energy transition is a source for new business opportunities for the energy sector, and that by challenging conventional thinking and exchanging data and experience, the industry has real development potential. It is not surprising, therefore, that increasing collaboration between individuals, companies, and countries, is what keeps Jan on the move. He feels, however, that there is room for improvement in the sharing of expertise, experience and facts. For example, he explains that there is no single silver bullet to manage the energy transition, rather we need to leverage the benefits of different technologies in order to be successful.