America’s new renewable power capacity is expected to triple each year through 2030. To decarbonize the grid, there needs to be a way to store those clean electrons. 

That’s where long duration energy storage (LDES) comes into play. These technologies can store energy for 12 hours, a full day, or even weeks at a time. Unfortunately, long duration storage is not widely used today. 

Julia Souder is working to solve that problem. As the head of the Long Duration Energy Storage Council, her team is working with the Department of Energy to develop and deploy LDES. 

But it will be a tough job. The goal is to deploy a gigawatt this year, but reach eight terawatts of capacity by 2040. That means cranking out 500 gigawatts annually for the remaining sixteen years.

This week Brad talks with Julia, CEO of the LDES Council about how they plan to meet these goals.