Long-Duration Storage Tackles Clean Energy’s Reliability Gap

Europe is drowning in cheap clean power, and still wasting it.
The problem isn’t renewables. It’s what happens when the grid can’t cope with abundance.

In this episode of the Climate Confident Podcast, I’m joined by Oonagh O’Grady, Vice President of International Origination at Hydrostor, a global leader in long-duration energy storage. We dig into one of the most under-discussed blockers of the energy transition: what happens after wind and solar scale, but before the grid is ready.

Oonagh explains why short-duration batteries, while essential, aren’t enough once renewables reach 40–50% of the system. We unpack why grids are hitting curtailment, negative pricing, and instability, and why eight to twenty-four hours of long-duration energy storage is fast becoming the backbone of a reliable, net-zero power system.

You’ll hear why advanced compressed air energy storage can deliver fossil-free, utility-scale flexibility for decades, how it compares with batteries and pumped hydro on cost and performance, and why inertia and grid stability are suddenly back in the spotlight after recent European outages. We also get into the policy side: what leading regions like California, Australia, and the UK are getting right, and what Europe must do now if it wants secure, affordable, decarbonised electricity in the 2030s.

This is a grounded, evidence-led conversation about climate tech that actually works at scale - and a reminder that without long-duration storage, the energy transition stalls just when it should be accelerating.

🎙️ Listen now to hear how Hydrostor and long-duration energy storage can unlock the next phase of the energy transition.

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Transcript

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Oonagh O'Grady: 0:03

We have seen maybe a little slow down in renewables integration, and that is down to things like curtailment and constraint affecting the business case. Negative pricing errors et cetera. And that is where long duration energy storage comes in because it soaks up that additional excess renewables.

Tom Raftery: 0:25

Good morning, good afternoon, or good evening, wherever you are in the world. Welcome to episode 257 of the Climate Confident Podcast. My name is Tom Raftery. Europe doesn't have a renewables problem. It has a flexibility problem. Wind and solar are scaling faster than anyone predicted, costs keep falling, deployment keeps accelerating. And yet across Europe we're curtailing clean power, forcing it to power down, hitting negative prices, and discovering that a grid built for fossil generation doesn't cope well with abundance. Batteries help. Demand response helps. But once you push past 40 or 50% renewables, short duration fixes, stop being enough. My guest today is Oonagh O'Grady, Vice President of International Origination at Hydrostor, one of the global leaders in long duration energy storage. We talk about why eight to 24 hours of storage is becoming the missing backbone of clean power systems, how advanced compressed air storage compares with batteries and pumped hydro. Why inertia and grid stability suddenly matter again, and what policymakers need to get right now if they want a reliable, affordable, zero carbon grid in the 2030s. If you care about energy security, grid resilience, and actually making renewables work at scale. This episode is for you. Oonagh, welcome to the podcast. Would you like to introduce yourself?

Oonagh O'Grady: 2:00

Yes, Tom, and thank you first. Thank you very much for having me, on the podcast. My name is Oonagh O'Grady. I work for a company Hydrostor. A global leader in long duration energy storage, and my role in the company is Vice President of International Origination, particularly looking after Europe.

Tom Raftery: 2:21

Fantastic. And what's your route to Vice President in Hydrostor Oonagh?

Oonagh O'Grady: 2:28

My route to Vice President in Hydrostor probably is on the back of about 20 years of experience across energy and infrastructure. Civil engineer is my I suppose primary degree, but very early on learned that what interested me in infrastructure was the commercial side of the business and the policy side in particular. So I spent some time with the system operator Eirgrid in Ireland working on grid connection policy. I then moved to SSE across the UK and Ireland. One of the major utilities in, the UK and Ireland. And worked throughout their divisions, but predominantly on market development and newer technologies. Like power CCS and hydrogen as well before joining Hydrostor a year and a half ago now. And very much enjoying the journey so far.

Tom Raftery: 3:20

Okay, great. And long duration energy storage. How are you defining long, because if we think about things like batteries, people in the battery space would consider long, maybe three or four hours, so I'm sure your definition might differ from that slightly.

Oonagh O'Grady: 3:39

Most definitely. And I think there are numerous maybe versions of definitions assigned to long duration energy storage. We would very much follow the LDES Council definition, which is eight plus hours. But I think I would premise that with saying that all types and all durations of storage are going to be required to balance our system, right from short duration like batteries that have done a significant and fantastic critical job so far, to long duration energy storage, which I think we would believe needs to come more into focus here in Europe. And then obviously ultra long solutions across seasons and across multiple days and weeks are required also.

Tom Raftery: 4:25

Okay, well people listening to this podcast will be familiar with the likes of using batteries for storage because we've had people in battery storage on before and heat as storage.'cause I've had Rondo on and I've had a couple of others in the heat space on before. But your solution is different, right? Hydrostor solution. Tell me a little bit about that.

Oonagh O'Grady: 4:49

Yeah. I think our solution is unique. Certainly, it has a very important role to play in system stability, reliability, and obviously balancing generation and demand. The sweet spot for, our solution is the eight to 24 hours of, of duration, and it is an at-scale solution. Around 500 megawatts is our, standard deployment. Our technology is based on compressed air energy storage, traditional compressed air energy storage with a number of operational sites, including Huntorf in Germany, which has been operational for a couple of decades now. But we have made a number of advancements to the traditional compressed air energy storage technology. Like compressed air energy storage we take excess renewables off the system. We use that electricity to fuel compressors, which compress ambient air, and in the process of compression, those compressors actually generate high grade heat, which we siphon often store in a proprietary thermal management system for reintroduction into the process later. Then the air is is basically stored in purpose hard rock, caverns, underground. And we do have a hydrostatic, compensator, or in my terms, a relatively small reservoir that ensures that the air is maintained at a constant pressure, increasing the efficiency of the system overall. Our system is fully charged. The system operator requests us to dispatch power to the system because it's needed. We release the water in the, the reservoir. It drives the compressed air up where it is released into turbines and where it's recombined with the high grade heat to expand the air and again, increase the efficiency of the electricity generated. The two advancements are one, the proprietary thermal management system that we have inserted. And by recycling that high grade heat, we have removed the need for fossil fuel to be introduced into the process. So we are a non-fossil fuel solution. In addition to that, traditional compressed air has been sited in salt caverns, and with the addition of the hydrostatic compensator, we have been able to locate in hard rock, which has much more abundance meaning that we can really site these systems exactly where the, the grid needs it in that regard. I think one other important part about our solution is it's lifecycle. So we are a 50 plus year asset, meaning once we are on the system, we're on the system for 50 plus years, very similar to, to pumped hydro et cetera.

Tom Raftery: 7:53

Sure, And I mean, most people are familiar with pumped hydro. There's a great example in Ireland in Turlouogh Hill, For people in other countries. There'll be other examples they'll be familiar with. One of the limitations of pumped hydro is obviously that you need a couple of lakes separated by, a hundred meters of, height or, roughly thereabouts. You are saying that you are limited only to places where there is hard rock underground. How common is that? I mean, are there different types of rock it has to be if you're in a limestone area or a basalt area or a granite area, or what are the kind of limitations there that you face?

Oonagh O'Grady: 8:30

Yeah. I think with regards to any country we, look at the geology screening in the first instance. And what we have found is that we have much more abundant siting options because of the hard rock requirement, whereas, for example, salt caverns or the topography required for pumped hydro, as you say Tom it is very dependent on the topography of each country. From our perspective, it's the likes of granite et cetera that is ideal for us. It's non-porous rock that allows that air to be contained within the, cavern and obviously to contain the water that we use as the hydrostatic compensator also. Our experience is across the European countries that we have looked at, across the UK, across Ireland, across Poland. There is an abundance of opportunity for citing because of that hard rock requirement as opposed to to salt caverns or the the topography requirement of pumped hydro.

Tom Raftery: 9:28

Okay. How does it work out cost-wise? It, it's very easy to cost batteries in terms of their storage per megawatt hour. It must be more challenging to price out the A-CAES, the compressed air energy storage because it's a longer term asset, and once it's installed, it's installed and there's only operating costs. You know, how, how do you work that out and what kind of price are you coming in at?

Oonagh O'Grady: 9:54

Yeah, I think it's a, a really important point to make is that our solution actually takes tier one suppliers, off the shelf components of kit, integrates those elements together. So these are components that the likes of Siemens, GE have been using and utilising and selling for quite a significant amount of time. That means when we are costing, we can take the costs of, those elements. With regards to the subsurface the construction mechanism that has been used or will be used to construct our, our caverns. That has been used in the oil and gas industry for, decades to store different I suppose, components to air and water. But still, the same construction mechanism has been utilised. So there's about 190 such caverns worldwide. Because we're merely integrating those components. It's actually, you know, taking those bill of quantities for each of those items and, and putting that together. We do have, to factor in any construction project the risk allowance with regards to those component parts and, and to the geology. But an interesting part about our geology is that unlike pumped hydro, we are not necessarily looking at precision engineering with regards to the, underground cavern. We find the appropriate layer of rock and we, we start to construct in that layer. So once we go down, it doesn't have to be precision, it's more about finding that, quality of rock. With regards to, I suppose the, competitiveness of the, technology. We would say at eight hours, we are, very competitive with regards to, to lithium ion batteries, et cetera. And the proof is in the pudding. You know, we have been successful in the LTESA program in New South Wales, in Australia, where our Silver City project was selected for an LTESA contract competing against batteries, pumped hydro, et cetera. And then also in California, our Willow Rock project was selected by one of the main utilities in California, 3CE to again enter a PPA after a competitive process there as well. So, in reality, the proof is in the pudding with regards to the procurement processes, but also with regards to, our competitive position against batteries. And especially when you consider the lifecycle element as well, which is exceptionally important. This is an asset that will be on the system for 50 plus years maintained appropriately and does not have a fossil fuel operational cost element which is also important.

Tom Raftery: 12:37

Yeah, of course, of course. Is there a big demand right now for eight to 24 hour storage?

Oonagh O'Grady: 12:45

So what I would say is that there are a number of leading countries in the regard to having identified system need firstly through appropriate kind of duration aware, robust modeling of their system need. So countries I would probably point to and probably states as opposed to countries But New South Wales in Australia would certainly be a leader with regards to long duration energy storage. And California, in North America would also be a, a leader there. Interestingly enough, their modeling is now showing that it is actually 10 to 12 hours that is the requirement. And that has also been echoed in the UK when they started their UK cap and floor long duration energy program with a requirement of six hours. But on further modeling by NISO, the system operator in the UK, that was actually increased to eight hours and at the time ten hours was also considered. So I think with regards to leading countries, what those leading countries have done is they have identified the system need. They have ensured that they include technologies in their modeling, like CAES and like advanced compressed air energy storage. They have updated the characteristics and performance specifications as those technologies have advanced, and they have the right cross points included there as well, but also most importantly, they have given really good investment signals for companies like Hydrostor in the way of setting a target. So we have something to aim for and to be part of by them setting a, a gigawatt or a gigawatt hour target. By defining that target as, and differentiating it from short duration storage, so setting you know, a minimum duration of eight hours. And then designing procurement schedules in a transparent manner. Saying how much they will procure and when, and making those procurement processes open to multiple technologies. So making them technology agnostic as long as those projects can satisfy the system needs that they have identified. And I think the third important thing that those countries have done is that they have recognised that these assets need a revenue certainty contract. So for these assets, the system doesn't always value them at the moment appropriately so there is a revenue certainty mechanism required to support the business case. And in New South Wales, they have the LTESA program to fulfill that role. In California, the utilities were mandated, to procure long duration energy storage under long-term PPAs or power purchase agreements. And in the UK, they have the cap and floor mechanism, which the UK has actually used for numerous technologies in the, the energy space as well. But those three components have made those countries, probably the world leaders in long duration energy storage.

Tom Raftery: 16:30

Okay, and why did you decide to go for that eight to 24 hour niche?

Oonagh O'Grady: 16:38

Yeah, I, I think it's, basically the sweet spot and where we feel our solution is the most economic. And, every system operator is, about finding the most economic solution for the system need. And I think twofold, we see that there is a system need for eight to 24 hours at scale. Technology is, and, and assets. And I think secondly it's, the most economic at that price point, especially when you take the lifecycle period of, of 50 plus years into consideration also.

Tom Raftery: 17:14

Okay, if I have a greenfield site there outside my window and I want to install a 500 megawatt or one gigawatt hour eight hour storage system, or two and a half gigawatt, whatever it is, one, two and a half gigawatt hour. How long does it take from start to finish?

Oonagh O'Grady: 17:33

Yeah, and what I might do is maybe give two examples of this. Our Silver City project in Australia is a 200 megawatt eight hour system. Interestingly it's located in Broken Hill. Which would be a mining region, and we have been able to take advantage of the fact that there is an existing mine shaft to gain access underground to the depths that we require. What that has allowed us to do is to reduce the scale of our project, 200 megawatts, eight hours, and still be economical as is evidenced by the the LTESA contract. But in addition to that, it also saves us on construction time. Our standard greenfield construction would be four years. With that access we have been able to reduce it to two years. So the Silver City Project has been able to take advantage of that existing mining infrastructure. However, we will look to construct our own cavern underground for integrity purposes. The second example and the comparable is our Willow Rock project, which is a greenfield site in Kern County, California. And that is a 500 megawatts eight hour system. So because that is a green field site, the most economic deployment is 500 megawatts. And there is no existing infrastructure in place to be utilised, and therefore that is a four year construction period from shovels in the ground to commercial operational date.

Tom Raftery: 19:06

Right. And so 500 megawatts, eight hours, that's four gigawatt hours. What kind of volume of cavern does that take?

Oonagh O'Grady: 19:18

Yeah, one of the interesting points that I may not have alluded to earlier when we were talking about duration is one of the interesting elements of our projects is the system need is changing. It is increasing. We're seeing that go from eight to 10 to 12 hours. So actually at a marginal additional cost post-operation, we can actually add duration to our system by adding caverns underground. But because the bulk of the, the CapEx has been already invested, it is at a marginal additional cost. We have the access down and it's really about expanding the caverns. The overall footprint of our system on the top side is about 50 to 75 acres upon completion and underground it would be, you know, fit well within that envelope also.

Tom Raftery: 20:10

Okay. Okay. And when an A-CAES advanced compressed air energy system, an A-CAES plant comes online, what changes for the grid, for the community, for the energy system?

Oonagh O'Grady: 20:24

That's a really important point, Tom, because energy projects, as I have learned over, over many years, they're more than just a technical solution. It is about the economic benefit it brings to the region. It is about jobs and most importantly, especially with the events in, in Spain and Portugal this year, it is about ensuring system reliability. And ensuring cost effective integration of renewables. Very importantly. So I think with regards to the project itself, from a system benefit perspective, we would very much see ourselves very similar to offering the same to the system as pumped hydro does. So we can offer that bulk energy shifting in day, so intra-day and also can contribute to that, multi-day energy storage balancing of generation and demand. But in addition to that, we have some really important ancillary services that we can provide as well. So, albeit in the, Spanish outage, a lot of words have been written about, about the causes.

Tom Raftery: 21:31

I wrote some myself.

Oonagh O'Grady: 21:33

I probably read read those words and, and lots more. But I think like any catastrophic event like that, there are a number of things that went wrong

Tom Raftery: 21:43

Hmm.

Oonagh O'Grady: 21:43

all at the same time. And that's how you have such a major outage like that, but one of the key parts was inertia. And so with lots of renewables on the system, and maybe declining thermal plants, which offered that backup previously, that meant that there was a lack of inertia on the system. And the interesting thing about our plant and our asset, which batteries don't necessarily provide is that system inertia. So it's like the backbone of system resilience on the, the energy system. And our system can do that when discharging or charging, but also when neither of those. We can make use of our, bank of compressors to provide that all important synchronous compensation to, the system as well as blackstart, et cetera. So from a technical solution, we can do I suppose the energy shifting, but we can also provide that backbone services that pumped hydro may have provided in the past, or thermal power plants would've done also as a, backup. From an economic perspective our projects are I think prime for just transition jobs as well. We are a mechanical solution. As I said, a lot of the, the kit has been used in the, the oil and gas industry of the past offering opportunities for retraining and reskilling on an a non-fossil fuel type asset. From a jobs perspective, at peak we will have 700 people during the construction phase, and we will have between 20 and 40 in the, operational phase. Again for that lifecycle of the project being 50 plus years. But we take our presence in the community very seriously as any energy developer needs to do. From early doors on all our projects, we engage with the community. We take stakeholder management very seriously. And we also like to contribute to the community. And a prime example of that is our work with the, Clontarf Academy in Broken Hill, which I had the, honor and the, the enjoyment of spending some time with the, the kids from the Clontarf Academy in Broken Hill last year. It is really important for developers like ourselves to do that and to involve the community from day one in our projects, to listen to their concerns and to address and mitigate them where possible. But to also support the economic benefit of the community and hopefully provide jobs long-term jobs for that community in the future.

Tom Raftery: 24:22

Nice. And we gotta think, you know, none of this scales without the right policy environment. So what do you think regulators and policy makers most urgently need to get right to accelerate LDES, long duration energy storage?

Oonagh O'Grady: 24:38

The first thing I would say is that there is urgency. And I'm, I'm sure everyone says that,

Tom Raftery: 24:43

Hmm.

Oonagh O'Grady: 24:43

But these are long, long lead time assets. So do you know, for, our solution it's seven years for pumped hydro solutions it could be seven to 12 years. And when I say seven years, I'm talking about development plus our, our standard four year construction period. Therefore, if you want assets on the system in the 2030s, we need to start now. And therefore. the European Union and the European Commission, we're hearing a lot more voices with regards to long duration energy storage and a lot more references. In 2026, there will be flexibility, needs assessments undertaken by each member state that's mandated by the, the European Commission. In those flexibility needs assessment, they'll look at all ranges of flexibility requirements on the system. But one of those will be long duration energy storage. And, I suppose we have in Hydrostor in anticipation of that and with our experience and our lessons learned from, other markets, we have published a white paper called From Ambition to Action which is specifically focused on the European market. In that white paper, we make three recommendations. The first recommendation, as I mentioned earlier, is about modeling the system from a duration aware perspective. So identifying your specific system or member states system need, what that duration is, which we anticipate will be more than your, eight hours. And also recognising that short duration and long duration provide different system benefits. Both are required, but you do need to, to separate out between short duration and long duration. It's like a Swiss Army knife. there's many different components and they all do different jobs, but the whole, array together make the Swiss Army knife, the Swiss Army knife. We would see it very similar in an energy storage perspective. And the second thing that is required, are those all important investment signals. And we have seen renewable targets have done, so much for the volumes of renewables that are now integrated into the system. It's really what drove that investment and continues to drive that investment. So, if you need long duration energy storage to economically integrate your renewables. If you are putting forward renewables targets, you also need to put forward long duration energy storage targets. And then with regards to those targets, it's important that they translate into procurement processes as quickly as possible to basically ensure we can continue to invest. We know that the outcome of those procurement processes are revenue certainty, well-designed, revenue certainty contracts. And when you combine all those together, that allows companies like Hydrostor to invest in assets within those countries knowing that we can play our role in, I suppose, securing and creating a reliable system. That's probably a big ask list. The great news is, that the Flexibility Needs Assessment and the European Commission's mandate to each of the member states actually fits really well into that framework and into those asks, but as we said in our paper, it's from ambition now into action, and 26 and 27 are going to be really important for that action element.

Tom Raftery: 28:22

Okay. And if you look 10, 15, 20 years ahead, what do you think Europe's grid looks like, if we get long duration energy storage right? And what does that look like if we don't?

Oonagh O'Grady: 28:35

I think looking ahead, the first thing I would say is we will have a strong resilient system. That is most important the second part is we will, well be on our way to carbon neutrality by 2050, which is a, a key European goal. And I think the third bit is that, we have seen maybe a little slow down in renewables integration, and that is down to things like curtailment and constraint affecting the business case. Negative pricing errors et cetera. And that is where long duration energy storage comes in because it soaks up that additional excess renewables, meaning that we can confidently have the economic integration of renewables in the most cost effective and cost efficient manner by pairing those two requirements together. I'm always an optimist. You have to be working in newer technologies, but I very much see that if LDES is integrated appropriately, it will result in, a reliable system, as well as securing security of supply across the European grids for decades to come. Especially given the long life cycle of many of these assets. So by investing now, it's securing both reliability and security of supply for decades to come. And, also importantly, it's reducing our dependency on fossil fuels and most importantly, imported fossil fuels, just given the geopolitical situations that we have encountered over the last few years.

Tom Raftery: 30:14

Yeah. Yeah. And what should businesses and energy buyers be watching in this kind of situation?

Oonagh O'Grady: 30:22

It's like everything. It's, about creating that needs case. I very much see the energy sector as an ecosystem and at different points of my career, I've worked on all sides of it. I have worked on the, generation side. To have a business case, there needs to be the demand side the supply side. And I think the new leg of that is energy storage. Because we now have renewables and are looking at renewable led systems, energy storage has become increasingly important to balance that supply and that generation. So I think by investing in long duration energy storage, it balances that, it looks to avoid curtailment costs, which we know could get as high as nearly a hundred billion by 2040 in Europe. Having a long sighted view will help with cost efficient, renewable led, reliant, and secure system. And I think that should rally the troops from customers who want that to large demand, users who need it to I think governments who if you, you look at for example. By my accent, you can tell I'm, I'm based here in Ireland, hopefully. But you know, looking at Ireland, our economic growth is dependent on our ability to allow increased demand of electricity. We have committed to that electricity being from a renewable source. And what allows us make that a steady state generator of clean electricity is that storage in the middle. And once we get to, you 40 to 50% of renewables on the system, that does have to be long duration energy storage. So it's all of those elements of the ecosystem. Having been in those respective camps previously, it is the solution in the middle that's important to enable the other legs of that ecosystem. And that to me is long duration energy storage.

Tom Raftery: 32:27

Okay. Nice. For people who are listening, Oonagh, is there anything they can do to help advance the cause of long duration energy storage?

Oonagh O'Grady: 32:37

I think by inserting it into the conversation the conversation around newer technologies that you don't have to rely on the technologies of the past. There are newer technologies emerging. And I think awareness is a key role that everyone can play. It is an interesting technology. Our company has a really interesting founding story that has led to where we are today. And I think interest is the key thing. And word of mouth. I think the second part that I would say is, again, thinking of these technologies beyond technical projects, it is about economic benefit. It is about the investment that companies like Hydrostor, if they develop in your region, bring into that region. And it is about jobs, clean energy transition jobs also. They have been very strong messages across all of our developments. But I do feel, for, right across the audience, it's about inserting newer technologies like advanced compressed air energy storage and other such energy storage technologies into the conversation. Be that in their workplace or other areas of interest with regards to energy transition.

Tom Raftery: 33:57

Great. A left field question for you so Oonagh, if you could have any person or character, alive or dead, real or fictional as a champion for compressed air energy storage, who would it be and why?

Oonagh O'Grady: 34:14

I'm going to play the favoritism game here. I would say it's actually our CEO Kurt. I probably haven't gone into it, but our company was, was founded by Kurt and Cameron Lewis in 2010. The company has been on a journey from looking at compressed air in water balloons underwater in our, early days to the technology that we now have. That has been in my eyes really motivating to hear their story from early doors to where the company is now having secured over 500 million USD of investments from companies like Goldman Sachs and the Canadian Pension Plan Investments and most recently support from the Canadian Road Fund and Export Canada. I think he's walking the walk and talking the talk, but actually, delivering on it as well. So definitely a, a person that from very day one in the company motivates all 1 40 plus staff to, come in every day, show up and show up with a purpose of what we can achieve with the ambition set in front of us.

Tom Raftery: 35:25

Very good. We're coming towards the end of the podcast now, Oonagh, is there any question that I didn't ask that you wish I did or any aspect of this we haven't covered that you think it's important for people to be aware of?

Oonagh O'Grady: 35:38

One of the key things is maybe, as I have alluded to there, we, we have been around a while as a company. We have been through our technology pilot. We have an operational plant in, Godrich at two megawatts that is commercially contracted to the Ontario Energy System. And has been for five years providing really important performance data and showing that this technology works in a, commercial manner as well. The important thing is we are developing at scale. We have two really well advanced projects that are looking at financial investment decision in H1 2026. They are the, Silver City Project in Australia which is a 200 megawatt eight hour project. It has gone through and has been awarded all of its permits to commence. We also have a full offtake for the project. We have an LTESA contract as well as a reliability contract. And in addition to that, we have basically all of the component parts to take that financial investment decision in H1 2026. Our Willow Rock Project in California, which is the 500 megawatt project at eight hours. That project is awaiting its final approval from a permitting perspective. The conditional results of that have been really positive. So we are are hoping for good news In addition to that, it is 500 megawatts. We have nearly 40% of that project the offtake secured through a local utility. And we are also shortlisted for the remaining capacity on that project as well. We have been successful in securing a conditional department of energy loan guarantee of about 1.7 billion USD. All of which I suppose I'm stating to really say is that, we have moved through our all important pilot projects into our commercially contracted projects and are now looking to deploy at scale with those financial investment decisions imminent. All of which, which has been, enabled by those three procurement steps that I mentioned earlier, and Hydrostor isn't stopping there. We have a worldwide portfolio of about seven gigawatts coming in close succession behind. And again, that pipeline, including projects in Ontario like our, Quinty project in markets like New York. They have been enabled by the start of that commercial pathway and the signals of procurement processes to allow us get started on those early developments to then be able to allow us bid into those processes. The message I suppose I'd, like to reiterate is that this technology is ready, it's proven, and it is being deployed at scale across the globe and in particular in those, leading long duration energy storage markets that have very much got that policy and investment signals, right?

Tom Raftery: 38:58

Lovely. Great. The future is bright. We gotta wear shades.

Oonagh O'Grady: 39:03

Yes.

Tom Raftery: 39:04

That's super great. Oonagh, that's been really interesting. If people would like to know more about yourself or any of the things we discussed on the podcast today, where would you have me direct them?

Oonagh O'Grady: 39:15

I would say to our website our Hydrostor website, which I can provide. the details to yourself, Tom, for and interestingly, on that website, you can also sign up for our newsletter which will keep people up to date on the advancements of our projects, the advancements of policy and technology as well as our company on a corporate level also.

Tom Raftery: 39:36

Super great. Oonagh, that's been fascinating. Thanks a million for coming on the podcast today.

Oonagh O'Grady: 39:42

Thanks, Tom.

Tom Raftery: 39:43

Okay, we've come to the end of the show. Thanks everyone for listening. If you'd like to know more about the Climate Confident podcast, feel free to drop me an email to tomraftery at outlook. com or message me on LinkedIn or Twitter. If you like the show, please don't forget to click follow on it in your podcast application of choice to get new episodes as soon as they're published. Also, please don't forget to rate and review the podcast. It really does help new people to find the show. Thanks. Catch you all next time.