Flow batteries and thermal storage are carrying much of the near-term LDES project pipeline, with a series of utility-scale orders and commissions announced through 2026. About 2 GW and 9 GWh of novel long-duration energy storage was installed globally in 2025, bringing cumulative deployment to 5 GW and 25 GWh — while announced pipelines remain far larger than commissioned capacity.
Vanadium flow: from demonstration to procurement
Invinity delivered a 20.7 MWh vanadium flow battery system for the Copwood Energy Hub in East Sussex in May 2026. The facility integrates battery storage with a 3 MWp solar installation, with grid connection and commercial operations planned for later in 2026. Invinity also secured an order for a 32 MWh flow battery at Pacific Steel Group's Mojave Micro Mill in California, where it will operate alongside a 40 MWp solar installation to support renewable electricity supply for steel manufacturing.
Dairyland Power Cooperative ordered 43 MWh of vanadium flow batteries for deployment across multiple locations in the Midwest, with deliveries expected to begin in 2027. Invinity was additionally selected to design a flow battery system of up to 1.5 GWh for the Technology Centre Laufenburg in Switzerland, a project integrating storage with an AI data centre and technology campus that remains in development.
Asia and the industrial heat route
Rongke Power is expanding vanadium flow battery manufacturing and electrolyte production, with its Dalian operations providing a commercial reference for grid-scale storage. In India, NTPC Renewable Energy's 16.7 MW/100 MWh vanadium flow battery project is at Khavda, Gujarat, while Gujarat Industries Power Company's 20 MW/120 MWh project is at Vadodara.
Thermal storage is advancing on a different axis. Antora Energy and POET commissioned Project Big Stone in South Dakota in May 2026, comprising approximately 5 GWh of thermal storage using more than 200 thermal batteries to supply industrial process heat.
Thermal capacity is measured in heat, not electrons: Project Big Stone's 5 GWh figure is thermal energy capacity, not electricity delivered to the grid.
Other vendors developing flow technology include Sumitomo Electric, CellCube, VRB Energy, H2 Inc. and StorEn Technologies, alongside ESS Tech, Rondo Energy and Kyoto Group in the broader LDES field. The pattern across 2026 is consistent: orders are moving from single-site demonstrations toward multi-site utility procurement and industrial offtake, but conversion into operating assets remains the sector's bottleneck.
This article was assisted by AI analysis. Please refer to the original source for official information.