Why Batteries Are Changing Faster Than the Industry Expected - Marek Kubik

**Marek Kubik** (0:00)
I'm your host, Ed Porter.

**Ed Porter** (0:01)
Welcome back to Transmission.
10 years ago, the companies that dominated the battery storage cell industry no longer make up the top 10 today. That's the story of this market. Intense competition and innovation keeps changing what is world class. Today's leading battery chemistry already has a challenger snapping at its heels in sodium iron. And even some of the biggest players today are losing ground. Marek Kubik has watched these shifts happen from inside the industry since the early days. He's back on Transmission to explain why the balance of power in battery storage keeps changing, and what's coming next. This episode isn't about who's winning today. It's about how fast that changes. For answers on power markets, cell chemistry and everything in between, try Ko, Modo Energy's AI Analyst, register for free and get three research articles a month on the latest in battery storage. Let's jump in.
Hello Marek, welcome back to Transmission.

**Marek Kubik** (1:09)
Thanks Ed, it's good to be back.

**Ed Porter** (1:11)
As ever, we're going to get straight into it. What is one thing that people get wrong about battery storage in the Middle East?

**Marek Kubik** (1:18)
That depends on how much you know about battery storage in the Middle East, because the first thing I would say is probably that it's a much larger market than most people realize or think.
Obviously, in the GCC especially, Gulf regional countries, so places like Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, they're massive oil producers. And so you wouldn't really expect a lot of storage, a lot of solar, but it's one of the fastest growing regions, probably the fastest growing region outside of China in the world. Saudi Arabia, just for context, I'm living in Saudi Arabia now, so this is kind of why we're starting, I guess, with the Middle East question.
It had at the end of 2024, zero grid sale batteries at all. So the first one came online January, 2025 And today we have about 18 gigawatt hours of installed operational battery storage, another four in construction and another 20 gigawatt hours that are in tender. So those numbers are mind-bogglingly huge in the context of most markets, considering this is like just one country. UAE, just today, I don't know if I'm supposed to use dates given that might date the podcast, but today is the 9th of July, 2026

**Ed Porter** (2:31)
2026, yeah.

**Marek Kubik** (2:32)
For those watching in the future. So just today, there was an announcement on a huge round-the-clock renewable power project in the United Arab Emirates as well, 19 gigawatt hour best as part of that along with solar. So basically, the first thing I would say is just it's a huge region growing very, very fast, which might be sort of counted to what you think in a country that produces and exports a lot of oil.

**Ed Porter** (2:55)
Yeah. And that's more than say like a Great Britain's battery fleet today, only done in say two years. So testament to kind of what you're saying. Obviously, China is sort of far and beyond. I think maybe Texas and California might have a little bit more, but the pace of it is super impressive. And I think people will be surprised about that. I just, in terms of the other project you mentioned, the sort of 24-7 concept, right?
What is unique about that area that allows it to go after 24-7 projects?

**Marek Kubik** (3:27)
So, well, there's a few different factors. So first is the land and the irradiance, right? So you have the sunbelt of the world has the best solar yield per square meter. So that means you can use your land more efficiently, get more power out of the solar panel that you place in the desert than if you place it in Northern Europe. That part is, let's say, helping the economics quite a bit. And you also have relatively stable capacity factors. So it's not that much more sunny in the summer than the winter. So you don't have this like yearly pattern that makes it a little bit harder to balance the solar supply, which means that when you look at the storage part of it and you want to basically deliver solar 24 seven, you don't need an absolutely gigantic battery of hundreds of hours. You can get away with six, eight, 10 hours, something like that, just to shift solar day to night. And it more or less will work that way the whole year. So the combination of solar plus BESS is really quite powerful in the Middle East because you can get economics that are comparable or better than fossil fuels, nuclear, and more importantly, much, much faster to build. So you can bring it online in a couple of years.