{"id":1246,"date":"2026-02-02T02:07:22","date_gmt":"2026-02-02T02:07:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/en.esplaza.com.cn\/?p=1246"},"modified":"2026-02-02T02:07:22","modified_gmt":"2026-02-02T02:07:22","slug":"tesla-and-lithium-ion-top-new-long-duration-storage-leaderboard-energy-dome-in-the-mix","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/en.esplaza.com.cn\/index.php\/2026\/02\/02\/tesla-and-lithium-ion-top-new-long-duration-storage-leaderboard-energy-dome-in-the-mix\/","title":{"rendered":"Tesla and lithium-ion top new long-duration storage leaderboard, Energy Dome in the mix"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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An analysis of the long-duration energy storage (LDES) scene, focusing on technologies with at least eight-hour durations, shows the top two providers today globally are lithium-ion battery makers Tesla and Chint Power.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The new leaderboard by Sightline Climate, being developed over the past 15 months, according to the firm, gives a snapshot right now of leaders in LDES across factors including technology performance, financial profile, deployment track record, and economics and cost.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lukas Karapin-Springorum, a research analyst at Sightline who introduced the LDES leaderboard to ESS News<\/strong>, said efforts to accurately rank players have been focusing on the core factors that matter to find the names that stakeholders like utilities, banks, and investors need to know right now.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI haven\u2019t seen many comparisons that are really apples-to-apples across the things that actually matter. For me, that\u2019s capex, lifetime, and round-trip efficiency,\u201d said Karapin-Springorum.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhen I think about which vendors have traction, I care about how many projects they have post-final investment decision, not just announcements. How many megawatts are under construction or operational? Over about 15 months, I built a database of publicly available and verifiable cost estimates from press releases, grant documents, and regulatory filings. That forms the nucleus of the cost side of the leaderboard. We do take vendor-supplied data, but we verify it against publicly available information, and there\u2019s analyst discretion around what\u2019s marketing spin versus what\u2019s real,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cVendors then earn points by reaching final investment decision (FID), improving pricing, and improving their technology. That\u2019s why the methodology allows movement.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

LDES Leaderboard details<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

In this first release, Sightline sent four separate views of the leaderboard, with a classic top five and a score breakdown that provides some insights into the part-by-part scoring of technology, finance, deployments, and economics.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The top two spots are held by Tesla and Chint Power, separated by a single point. The score breakdown appears to show both scored the same on tech, finance, and deployments, with economics the only differentiator.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Chint has been quick to win post-FID points by being chosen for one of Australia\u2019s first eight-hour duration projects, a Lightsource bp project at the 49MW\/562MWh\u202fGoulburn River Solar Farm in New South Wales. That one project boosting Chint implies that the leaderboard will see quick fluctuations as major projects are awarded.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The next players in the list include Milan-based Energy Dome<\/a> and its CO2 battery, with its LDES technology involving charging by using low-price, clean grid electricity to move gaseous CO2 to be stored under pressure in its liquefied form, making it a mechanical storage system.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dropping back from the top three is Highview Power and Hydrostor; Highview Power offers a liquid air energy storage solution, while Hydrostor offers compressed air energy storage (CAES).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u201cLong-duration lithium-ion batteries are the incumbent, and they\u2019re setting the bar,\u201d said Karapin-Springorum. \u201cThey have strong round-trip efficiency, strong capex, and we\u2019re seeing real projects post-FID, particularly supported by policy in places like New South Wales and California.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hydrostor is one company likely to jump up the leaderboard thanks to deployments set to come online, including its 200 MW\/1.6 GWh Silver City Energy Storage Centre project in Broken Hill<\/a> in remote Australia, and its 500 MW Quinte Energy Storage project in Ontario\u2019s Lennox and Addington County.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Excluding lithium<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

To provide further depth to the discussion, Sightline did send through a view of the leaderboard that excluded lithium-ion projects, showing ESS Tech and Sage Geosystems sitting sixth and seventh on the rankings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

ESS Tech is an Oregon-based iron flow battery manufacturer<\/a> that had previously restructured and hired a new CEO in early 2025.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sage Geosystems<\/a> is a geothermal company, and just this week it announced it had received $97 million in Series B funding from Ormat Technologies and Carbon Direct Capital, and had teamed up with Swiss electrification and automation specialist ABB to ramp up its growth efforts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u201cWe\u2019re tracking more than 120 vendors. A handful of those will actually scale\u2026 I think we\u2019re going to find out who the winners are over the next 12 months, and just in the next six months, we\u2019ll see key decisions in the UK, New South Wales, and Ontario, and that\u2019s where scale really starts to matter,\u201d noted Karapin-Springorum.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMechanical storage is doing very well. Liquid CO\u2082, liquid air, and adiabatic compressed air are currently among the top five,\u201d noted Karapin-Springorum. \u201cIt\u2019s a fundamentally different approach to long-duration energy storage, and each of these technologies has a theoretical case for why it should be cost-effective and scalable. Mechanical storage is a bit like the \u2018small modular nuclear reactor\u2019 of long-duration storage. It\u2019s fleet-based, it needs standardization, and it benefits from some economies of scale, but it won\u2019t follow the same cost curve as lithium-ion.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

An analysis of the long-duration energy storage (LDES) scene, focusing on technologies with at least…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1223,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1246","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-company","category-research"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/en.esplaza.com.cn\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1246","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/en.esplaza.com.cn\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/en.esplaza.com.cn\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/en.esplaza.com.cn\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/en.esplaza.com.cn\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1246"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/en.esplaza.com.cn\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1246\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1248,"href":"https:\/\/en.esplaza.com.cn\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1246\/revisions\/1248"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/en.esplaza.com.cn\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1223"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/en.esplaza.com.cn\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1246"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/en.esplaza.com.cn\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1246"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/en.esplaza.com.cn\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1246"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}