Green Revolution Makes Long Term Energy Storage Inevitable

When solar and wind produce more than the grid is consuming, that excess just gets wasted. Inverters cut production back because there is nowhere for the surplus to go, and on the wholesale side it sometimes sells at negative prices. The next big grid upgrade is the ability to capture that overproduction and store it for when demand picks back up. This gets urgent fast as EVs scale, because when everyone pulls into the driveway at 5pm and plugs in, the grid currently cannot handle that simultaneous load. Politicians are pushing electrification mandates without solving the storage problem that makes any of it actually work. GWH is developing Iron Flow batteries, these batteries are dirt cheap to produce and last up to 15,000 charging cycles, the batteries do take up a lot of space as iron outputs low voltage. IESVF is a small company working on vanadium flow batteries, similar principle to iron flow but higher energy density, lasts for over 25,000 cycles but reliant on Chinese supply chain to build, legacy immortal tech, but not efficient at scale. EOSE is a company building a hybrid zinc-halide battery, much more compact , less cycles (6-10,000), cheap material promising tech but degrades faster. BEP is a legacy pumped hydro play, the tech is proven and been around for ever. NRGV is a company that uses different types of batteries (gravity and lithium ion) to buy excess (otherwise wasted) energy from the grid at a time of overproduction and sell it back to the grid in times of higher demand. FLNC is the most established long term energy storage play, they creates lithium ion battery storage facilities at scale, they already have a market share so whatever tech wins the race they will adopt and apply to their existing supply lines and future contracts. My bet is on iron flow batteries.