Power Energy
The Next Energy War: Why China’s Long-Duration Storage Lead Might Fade by 2030
China currently dominates long-duration energy storage (LDES) deployment and lithium-ion battery manufacturing. But a confluence of policy shifts in the U.S. and Europe, along with breakthroughs in non-Chinese alternative technologies (flow batteries, compressed air, gravity), threatens to erode that lead. BloombergNEF projects non-Chinese LDES capacity could surpass China’s by 2030. This article goes beyond market share to explore the hidden economic logic: the race is moving from cost-per-kilowatt-hour to system-level integration and supply-chain geopolitics. We analyse how external incentives and novel tech pathways could reshape global energy storage leadership.