Responding to President von der Leyen’s UN address, Flow Batteries Europe says long-duration storage is the European-made answer to the clean-power waste she named
Flow Batteries Europe (FBE) welcomes the clear signal sent by European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen at the United Nations, where she named storage and flexibility as the missing pieces between Europe’s clean-power ambition and its delivery.
She pointed to the scale of what is being lost: „Last year, in the European Union, we installed more than 80 gigawatts of renewable capacity. That is good. But six times more capacity is still waiting to be connected. What a waste. So we need to boost storage and flexibility and accelerate grid connections.“
FBE’s response is simple: the technology to stop that waste already exists, is proven, and is built in Europe.
„When the President says ‚what a waste‘, she is describing exactly the problem our industry was built to solve,“ said Kees van de Kerk, President of Flow Batteries Europe. „Clean electricity that cannot be stored and shifted into the hours when it is actually needed is clean electricity thrown away. Flow batteries turn those wasted gigawatts into reliable power for the evening peak and for the long stretches shorter-duration technologies cannot cover. We are not asking Europe to wait for a breakthrough — the answer is ready now.“
Long-duration storage is the specific capability Europe needs to integrate the renewables it is already building, and vanadium flow batteries are designed for exactly this duty. Their power and energy scale independently, so more storage hours simply means larger tanks — which makes them increasingly cost-effective the longer the duration required, the segment where Europe’s flexibility gap is widest. They offer service lives of 20 to 30 years across tens of thousands of cycles, and their water-based, non-flammable electrolyte substantially reduces fire-propagation risk compared with flammable-electrolyte systems. Above all, they are made in Europe: European manufacturers, integrators and the continent’s largest electrolyte production capacity are export-ready today.
President von der Leyen framed electrification as a matter of sovereignty and affordability, noting that doubling the share of electricity by 2040 could cut Europe’s fossil-fuel import bill by EUR 260 billion a year. Storage is what makes that electricity dependable enough to displace fossil backup.
„The policy direction is now unambiguous, and our sector is ready to take its part in delivering it,“ said Juergen Wieshoff, Head of Governmental and Public Affairs at Flow Batteries Europe. „Flow batteries are a European industrial strength, not a dependency. As the Commission moves from ambition to delivery, long-duration storage must be treated as core infrastructure — and our members stand ready to make that happen.“
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