The LDES Council has published its first guide on “Procuring Long Duration Energy Storage: A Technical Guide for Decision Makers”, providing a practical checklist designed to help project developers, utilities, policymakers, and system planners develop procurement processes that unlock the full value of long duration energy storage. 

Energy storage is scaling rapidly, with more than 75 GW of battery storage added in 2024. Yet organisations like the IEA caution that batteries alone cannot meet all future flexibility needs, particularly seasonal requirements. As over 70 governments and organisations back a global target of 1,500 GW of installed energy storage by 2030, long duration energy storage (LDES) will play an increasingly important role in supporting reliability, flexibility and resilience across industries and power markets. However, many existing procurement frameworks were developed around conventional generation assets or shorter duration storage technologies, creating barriers for a wider range of LDES solutions to participate. 

This technical guide addresses this challenge by providing a practical checklist that can be used to develop technology-inclusive procurement approaches and ensure storage projects are evaluated based on the value they provide to the energy system.  

The checklist, developed with input from LDES Council members, helps stakeholders: 

• Recognise the diversity of LDES technologies: understand the broad range of electrochemical, mechanical, thermal and chemical storage technologies available today, and how long duration energy storage solutions beyond eight hours to address different system needs. 
• Enable fair participation across technology types: promote diversity in technologies procured that focus on the range of value provided rather than prescribing specific technologies, allowing fair competitiveness.  
• Align procurement requirements with real system value: move beyond narrow technical metrics and evaluate storage solutions based on their contribution to reliability, resilience, renewable integration and long-term system flexibility. 
• Support scalable and bankable deployment pathways: identify procurement practices that improve investment certainty, encourage bankability and create clearer routes to commercial deployment for long duration energy storage projects. 

Designed for utilities, system operators, policymakers, planners and project developers, the guide is not intended to prescribe a single procurement model. Instead, it provides a practical checklist that can be used as the foundation for new tenders or incorporated into existing procurement processes, helping decision makers assess technology eligibility, physical and operational requirements, commercial structures and financial evaluation.  

By supporting more inclusive, value-based and system-aligned procurement, this guide will help unlock diversity in duration and technology participation, strengthen investment confidence and accelerate the deployment of long duration energy storage technologies worldwide.