MESH LDES Cap and Floor Comparison Chart 1/25 Jul 2026 11:43
The post from #EPP to Energy Minister Michael Shanks @mgshanks appears to have been overlooked by the market.
It congratulates Mr Shanks and the government for recognising LDES as a vital element in the future UK energy mix and acknowledges the big leap forward for LDES with the recent 16 project cap and floor shortlist.
However, the company also posted a rather compelling chart showing the scale of MESH Phase One compared with the other 16 LDES projects, with an even more compelling set of statistics discreetly marked by an *asterisk. (It’s worth highlighting at this point that MESH’s LDES facility is co developed with Siemens Energy who have recently confirmed these numbers and commercial viability as per RNS 28/04/26)
The key to long duration energy storage is the “Long”.
When there’s unfavourable weather events such as the recent heatwave or periods of no wind, storage duration is critical. Battery systems can bridge the gap for a few hours but the UK energy system needs more flexibility to help ensure grid stability. Longer durations are vital, and as you will see, the MESH duration dominates the chart with “game-changing” storage duration of 190 hours (~8 days). That’s 6x the length of its closest competitor Coire Glas with 32 hours.
But the other key column in the chart shows MESH’s potential via its storage capacity. Phase one development can provide 290MW of output and a huge 55GWh of storage capacity, again topping the list at ~20% higher than its nearest competitor.
But, next to this value is an *asterisk, and this is where things get interesting.
The asterisk note states:
“Design capacity & output for MESH Phase 1 project. MESH can be expanded with modular design and scaled up to 3GW output”
The 290MW output, 55GWh MESH Phase One facility represents a development of 4 CAES salt caverns (each the size or 4 St Paul’s Cathedrals), however the license area allows for expansion up to 60 caverns.
So at 60 caverns MESH would crank up to an output of 3GW (3000MW), at a storage duration of 190 hours. That equates to a colossal capacity of 570,000MWh, or 570GWh, enough to power nearly a third of UK homes.
I now understand why they didn’t plot this on the chart… MESH belongs in a totally different category/range.
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