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Hello from New York. Europe today is coming to grips with the significant wins by far-right parties in the EU elections. As our colleagues reported on Sunday, “kiss goodbye to the European Green Deal”. While the significance of these elections is still being understood, they could deal a major blow to renewable energy and sustainable investing on the continent that is the world’s leader in both. For today, I have an article about one aspect of renewable energy that does not get much visibility: storage.
And while we might associate batteries with electric vehicles, batteries are crucial to increasing electricity demand as well. Thank you for reading. — Patrick Temple-West Battery storage companies are booming, but can they catch Tesla? When most people think of Tesla they picture its electric cars (or maybe a Cybertruck. I saw my first in New York last week). And when most people think of Tesla’s competitors, Ford, General Motors and other auto manufacturers come to mind.
But not Julian Nebreda, chief executive of Fluence Energy, a Virginia-based, publicly traded energy storage provider. “Tesla is probably our biggest competitor,” Nebreda told me. It is all due to Tesla’s significant — and perhaps under-appreciated — battery storage division. Tesla launched a battery storage business in 2015. In April this year, Tesla reported record energy storage revenues of $1.6bn for the first quarter. “Energy generation and storage remains our highest margin business,” the company said in an earnings report. Fluence went public in 2021 and was started by AES, a Virginia utility, and German energy company Siemens.
AES started work on lithium-ion energy storage in 2007, and now Fluence is one of Wall Street’s favourite companies as it hopes to benefit from booming electricity demand underpinned by artificial intelligence.
January 16, 2026