The 2025 Energy Storage Awards quietly mapped out the future of green technology. Here’s what the winners reveal about storage, AI, and real net-zero strategy.
Most companies talk about “sustainability” while still treating energy storage as an optional add-on. The 2025 Energy Storage Awards showed just how outdated that mindset is.
Battery storage, long-duration storage, and smart trading platforms aren’t side projects anymore. They’re the backbone of a serious green technology strategy—especially if you’re trying to hit net-zero targets, stabilise renewables, or build investable clean energy portfolios going into 2026.
This year’s winners—Fluence, Energy Dome, EDF, Zenobē and others—aren’t just collecting trophies. They’re quietly rewriting how grids operate, how investors structure deals, and how green technology creates real economic value instead of just PR slides.
This matters because the gap between “we installed some solar” and “we run a resilient, low-carbon energy system” is almost entirely about storage and optimisation. The awards highlight who’s actually closing that gap—and how.
What the 2025 winners tell us about the future of green technology
The main signal from the Energy Storage Awards 2025 is clear: green technology leadership is now measured by execution in energy storage, not just by megawatts of wind and solar installed.
Across the winners, three themes stand out:
- Scale and modularity in grid-scale battery energy storage systems (BESS)
- Diverse storage technologies, including non-lithium long-duration options
- Intelligent optimisation, where software and trading platforms turn assets into revenue and resilience
If you’re a utility, investor, or large energy user planning strategy for 2026–2030, these themes should be on your whiteboard. They’re where the real competitive advantage is forming.
Fluence: From “system integrator” to critical infrastructure partner
Fluence walked away with multiple major awards again in 2025: System Integrator of the Year, Product of the Year, and recognition for Best Overall European Energy Storage Project through its work in Ukraine.
Why Fluence keeps winning
Fluence isn’t winning just because it’s big. It’s winning because it’s cracked a combination most players struggle with:
- Tier-1, modular BESS technology that scales into multi-hundred-megawatt projects
- Proven ability to execute at that scale in complex environments
- Real-world impact, including operation in a war-torn grid under extreme stress
Its Smartstack grid-scale BESS platform, which took Product of the Year, reflects an important shift: storage products aren’t judged only by hardware specs anymore. They’re judged on:
- How fast they can be deployed
- How flexibly they can switch between services (capacity, frequency response, grid stability)
- How well they integrate into existing grid operations and markets
This is where green technology meets brutal practicality. Boards don’t care if a system is clever; they care if it works, scales, and passes bank credit committees.
Ukraine: energy storage under pressure
Fluence’s collaboration with DTEK on a 200MW/400MWh BESS portfolio in Ukraine was recognised as Best Overall European Energy Storage Project. That’s a big deal for two reasons:
- It reframes storage as essential infrastructure, not a “nice to have.”
- It proves BESS operates not just for decarbonisation, but for grid survival.
DTEK—already Ukraine’s largest power generator—also won Developer of the Year, partly for expanding beyond its home market into countries like Poland. For investors watching political risk, this combination of:
- High-stress deployment
- Portfolio-scale strategy
- Cross-border development
…is a strong blueprint for resilient green investment.
Actionable takeaway: If you’re planning large-scale storage, look hard at partners with experience in complex, high-risk environments. Those are the companies that won’t fall apart when your project hits its first serious regulatory or grid-connection hurdle.
Long-duration storage steps out of the lab: Energy Dome’s momentum
The Energy Storage Awards introduced a Long-Duration Energy Storage (LDES) Company of the Year category in 2024. Energy Dome won then, and won again in 2025.
That consistency matters. Long-duration storage has spent years as PowerPoint material. Double wins suggest something has changed.
Why Energy Dome’s CO₂ Battery matters
Energy Dome’s CO₂ Battery is a non-lithium technology using carbon dioxide as the working fluid in a closed thermodynamic cycle. The judges highlighted three hard-nosed points:
- A 20MW/200MWh commercial project is already operating in Italy
- The company has a strong global pipeline, especially focused on the US
- It has commercial maturity—offering both storage-as-a-service and ownership models, backed by major investors
The takeaway is blunt: long-duration storage has moved from R&D headline to bankable asset class.
From a green technology perspective, that’s huge. Short-duration lithium BESS (1–4 hours) is fantastic for frequency, arbitrage, and some peak shaving. But if you want to:
- Firm large volumes of wind and solar across days
- Reduce dependence on gas peakers
- Stabilise grids with high renewable penetration in winter and shoulder seasons
…you need multi-hour to multi-day storage. That’s exactly what LDES tech like CO₂-based systems is built for.
How businesses can practically engage with LDES
If you’re a developer, offtaker, or corporate buyer, the smart question now is: Where does LDES fit in my stack, and how do I contract it?
You don’t need to become a thermodynamics expert. Focus on:
- Use cases: seasonal shifting, multi-day backup, renewables firming
- Contract models: storage-as-a-service vs ownership
- Revenue stacking: capacity payments, system services, long-term PPAs
As we’ve seen across this Green Technology series, hybrid portfolios—solar + wind + short-duration BESS + LDES—are increasingly the winning design for both resilience and profitability.
EDF and the rise of smart optimisation
Hardware gets the photos, but software and trading platforms decide who makes money. EDF’s double recognition in 2025 proves that point.
- Trading and Optimisation Team of the Year (for the second year running)
- Breakthrough R&D / Innovation of the Year for its T&O platform
The judges called EDF’s trading and optimisation platform “a leading platform for BESS asset owners, with a strong focus on breaking down barriers for new customers.” That phrase matters.
Why optimisation is now core green technology
As storage fleets grow, markets get more complex, not less. You’ve got:
- Multiple ancillary service markets, each with different rules
- Capacity mechanisms and forward markets
- Dynamic wholesale pricing and congestion signals
Running a 50MW or 300MW BESS without a sophisticated optimisation layer is like running a data center without IT monitoring. You’ll survive for a while, but you’ll burn money and miss opportunities.
Platforms like EDF’s sit at the intersection of AI, analytics, and green technology:
- They forecast prices and system needs
- They decide how assets should respond in real time
- They keep track of degradation and technical limits
If you’re procuring storage in 2026, don’t just buy containers and inverters. Buy an optimisation strategy. That may mean partnering with a trader, licensing a platform, or working with a vertically integrated player—but it has to be in the plan.
Zenobē, Wärtsilä, NHOA: scale, grid stability and EPC depth
Not all the most important stories are in the headline awards. Some of the most interesting signals came from project- and EPC-focused wins.
Blackhillock: grid-forming storage at serious scale
Zenobē Energy’s Blackhillock project in Scotland was a triple winner:
- Grid-Scale Standalone Energy Storage Project of the Year
- Best Project over 100MW – UK
- Best Project over 100MW – Europe
When fully built, Blackhillock will reach 300MW/600MWh, and judges highlighted that it’s strategically located to ease Scottish grid congestion and support offshore wind integration.
Two key technical trends show up here:
- Grid-forming inverters: Storage isn’t just following the grid anymore; it’s helping create the grid waveform. That’s essential as synchronous generation retires.
- Congestion relief as a core value stack: Storage can delay or avoid expensive transmission upgrades by providing local flexibility.
For anyone developing large renewables clusters—offshore wind, solar hubs, or interconnector nodes—this is the model to study. Storage isn’t an afterthought; it’s embedded into system design.
Wärtsilä and NHOA: EPC and global pipelines
Wärtsilä featured in multiple winning projects, including collaborations with Zenobē and NHOA Energy, which took EPC Firm of the Year. Judges pointed to NHOA’s “impressive profile” with large, multi-region projects and an extensive pipeline.
This highlights something I’ve seen repeatedly: In green technology, the quiet differentiator is often EPC competence at scale.
If you’re selecting partners for your next BESS or hybrid project, stress-test:
- Their track record above 100MW
- Their ability to deliver across multiple jurisdictions
- Their balance between in-house and subcontracted capability
Trophies don’t build projects, teams do. But award histories are a surprisingly useful proxy for who actually gets steel in the ground on time.
Talent, diversity and the human side of energy storage
Green technology isn’t just hardware and algorithms; it’s also people. The 2025 awards made that very clear with categories recognising individual contributions and diversity.
Rising talent: from 9MW to 900MW
The Rising Star award went to Rutwij Hoshing of Gore Street Capital. Judges highlighted milestones like:
- Pioneering US IRA tax credit transactions
- Securing rare contracts in California
- Scaling a storage portfolio from 9MW to 900MW
- Contributing to over £150 million in debt raised
That career arc tells you a lot about where the market is headed: global, financialised, and increasingly sophisticated about regulation and incentives. If you’re building a green technology team, you need at least one person who loves term sheets as much as transformers.
Lifetime impact and inclusion
Two more human stories stand out:
- Outstanding Contribution to Energy Storage went to Vidyadhar Rangojoo of Fluence, recognised for foundational technical innovation, industry standards work, and mentoring the next generation.
- The first Diversity and Inclusion Award went to Women in Energy Storage Network (WinES) for building a powerful cross-company, cross-industry network supporting women in a still male-dominated sector.
Diversity initiatives can sound like “soft” topics until you look at where innovation actually comes from. Complex systems—like AI, grid design, and storage portfolios—benefit from diverse perspectives. Homogeneous teams make homogenous mistakes.
If your organisation claims to be serious about green technology but your storage, AI, and engineering teams all look the same and come from the same backgrounds, you’re leaving insight on the table.
What this means for your green technology strategy
The Energy Storage Awards 2025 weren’t just about handing out trophies in London. They quietly mapped out what serious green technology will look like between now and 2030.
The pattern is clear:
- Storage is central to credible decarbonisation and grid resilience
- Long-duration technologies are investable, not just experimental
- AI-driven optimisation is mandatory, not optional
- Scale, execution, and diversity of talent separate leaders from followers
If you’re planning your next move in clean energy—whether as a utility, investor, large offtaker, or tech company—use the winners as a checklist:
- Are you treating storage as core infrastructure, or just as a bolt-on?
- Do you have a plan for long-duration storage in high-renewable scenarios?
- Is there a clear optimisation and trading strategy for every asset you build or invest in?
- Are you working with partners who’ve actually delivered >100MW projects, not just talked about them?
- Is your talent and leadership pipeline as modern as your technology?
The reality? The companies recognised this year are already acting on those questions. If you’re not, 2026 is going to feel very busy, very quickly.
This article is part of our Green Technology series, where we unpack how AI, storage, and smart infrastructure are reshaping clean energy and sustainable growth.