New Energy World™
New Energy World™ embraces the whole energy industry as it connects and converges to address the decarbonisation challenge. It covers progress being made across the industry, from the dynamics under way to reduce emissions in oil and gas, through improvements to the efficiency of energy conversion and use, to cutting-edge initiatives in renewable and low-carbon technologies.
Long-duration energy storage (LDES) is increasingly seen as vital to a resilient power grid, and the UK should soon have a lot more of it. Ofgem defines LDES as ‘systems that can store and release electricity for eight hours or more’. Although most battery installations are used for short-term storage (less than four hours), some innovative suppliers, including Field, are using batteries for LDES. Toby Clark explains how.
According to Ofgem, LDES systems help balance the supply and demand of electricity, especially when using renewable energy sources like wind and solar, which can be unpredictable. The UK grid has had LDES for many years, in the form of pumped storage hydro (PSH) schemes. Even the newest, Dinorwig in North Wales, has been in operation for a long while, entering service in 1984.
Under the UK Clean Power 2030 Action Plan, the government commissioned Ofgem to assess and select LDES projects which could ‘reduce costs by alleviating pressure on transmission and distribution networks, minimising the need for costly investment in new infrastructure or constraint management'. A ‘minded to’ list of provisional projects was published in June 2026 and a consultation period has just concluded, with final determinations expected later this year.
The programme is based around a ‘cap and floor’ mechanism: a minimum revenue floor helps LDES operators manage high capital costs and long build times, while the revenue cap should eventually lower costs for consumers. The government appointed Ofgem as the regulator based on its experience with interconnector cap and floor schemes.