Long-duration Energy Storage (Science and Technology Committee Report)

Lord Wei Excerpts

Thursday 9th January 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wei (Con)]

My Lords, I extend my gratitude to the noble Baroness, Lady Brown, for initiating this crucial debate. I too am very much looking forward to the maiden speech by the Minister, the noble Baroness, Lady Gustafsson, and welcome her to the House. I declare my interest as an advisor to Future Planet Capital, a venture capital firm that invests in impactful technologies pertinent to this discussion, and my personal commitment to the energy transition. It has been an honour to serve on this committee and to work with its very able team, whom I also thank.

I welcome the report’s focus on the urgent need to scale up long-duration energy storage to meet the twin challenges of achieving a sustainable future and securing our energy supply in the face of renewable intermittency and increasing geopolitical black swans. However, I will focus on the role that innovation can play if sufficiently supported to scale up solutions by cultivating genuine market demand, at the right low prices and faster, for long-term energy storage.

First, we must do more to enable large energy users—industry, data centres and other high-demand sectors—to create a market for innovation in both storage and modular power generation. These organisations, with their predictable energy needs and financial capacity, are better placed to pilot advanced technologies. Whether through industrial partnerships or new regulatory frameworks, fostering collaboration between energy-intensive industries and technology developers, we could develop and deploy localised, modular solutions such as small-scale hydrogen storage, modular reactors, more universal bidirectional EV charging—essentially using our vehicles as an energy store—or other emerging technologies, over short and long periods. Many of these were touched on in the report. This approach could reduce reliance on large-scale, grid-intensive centralised solutions and catalyse a market-driven pathway to resilience, moderating short-term demand and building longer-term storage solutions.

Secondly, while hydrogen storage in salt caverns has received significant attention following the report’s launch, as well as gas more recently, it is vital that we broaden our portfolio of solutions to give ourselves radically more affordable and more resilient options. Emerging modular storage methods, including safer hydrogen hydrates technology and advanced battery chemistries, still hold promise for providing flexible, cost-effective alternatives. Encouraging diverse scaled-up storage innovation will mitigate the risk of overreliance on a single, expensive and centralised approach, particularly given Treasury constraints. We need a big push to get all parties to help accelerate the most promising breakthrough technologies for storing and generating baseload supportive energy and storage, avoiding lock-in to older, higher-cost solutions. I have seen technology coming down the line that could increase industrial energy capacity by at least 50%. It would be a shame to overlook or close the door to such solutions in favour of ones that are more costly, even if more proven and established in the short term.

Thirdly, the report rightly highlights the urgency of fast-tracking planning, deploying capital and creating necessary price signals. Should we not go much further and consider putting in place a task force, akin to the Vaccine Taskforce, also empowered with a venture capital chair’s mindset, to cut through red tape, make rapid decisions and make smart, risk-managed bets with key stakeholders regularly, especially in relation to procurement? This would deliver the energy storage needed to prevent blackouts and secure cheaper energy faster, using modular baseload and emerging technologies.

In closing, I have some questions for the Minister. What actions are being taken to incentivise large energy users in driving market-based innovation in and scaling-up of storage and modular power generation? How are the Government supporting diversification of storage technologies, particularly for localised and industrial applications? What steps are being taken to develop the task force-style approach to cut through and get us to where we need to be at the right price and in ways that will bring the populace along with us? The time for bold, co-ordinated action is now. By leveraging the innovative capacity of our industries and innovators and focusing on diverse, scalable solutions, we can still secure a resilient and sustainable energy future for our country.