European long-term energy storage methods

What does the European Commission say about energy storage?

The Commission adopted in March 2023 a list of recommendations to ensure greater deployment of energy storage, accompanied by a staff working document, providing an outlook of the EU’s current regulatory, market, and financing framework for storage and identifies barriers, opportunities and best practices for its development and deployment.

Why is energy storage important in the EU?

It can also facilitate the electrification of different economic sectors, notably buildings and transport. The main energy storage method in the EU is by far 'pumped hydro' storage, but battery storage projects are rising. A variety of new technologies to store energy are also rapidly developing and becoming increasingly market-competitive.

What are mechanical energy storage methods?

Innovative mechanical energy storage methods, such as CAES and LAES, use the physical states of air under various situations to store and release energy . Large-scale LDES is a notable feature of CAES, which compresses air and stores it in underground caves or containers to be released later to generate power.

How much energy storage capacity does the EU need?

These studies point to more than 200 GW and 600 GW of energy storage capacity by 2030 and 2050 respectively (from roughly 60 GW in 2022, mainly in the form of pumped hydro storage). The EU needs a strong, sustainable, and resilient industrial value chain for energy-storage technologies.

Does Europe need energy storage?

Europe has set ambitious targets for renewables. Now, the EU must do the same for energy storage, particularly LDES, to ensure delivery of these renewables reliably and affordably.

What is the energy storage strategy?

2. Calls on the Commission to develop a comprehensive strategy on energy storage to enable the transformation to a highly energy-efficient and renewables-based economy taking into account all available technologies as well as close-to-market technologies and keeping a technology-neutral approach to ensure a level playing field;