22 September 2026 | Hosted by NetZero Energy Transition Association (NETRA) | Free & open to all
World Energy Storage Day marked its 10th anniversary with a day-long global virtual conference bringing together policymakers, technologists, financiers, and entrepreneurs from across the energy storage value chain — from critical minerals and cell manufacturing to grid deployment, safety standards, and next-generation battery chemistry. The event traced a decade of progress, from the earliest grid-scale battery pilots to today’s multi-terawatt-hour storage pipeline, while mapping out the next frontier: long-duration and seasonal storage, resilient mineral supply chains, and the manufacturing scale-up needed to take emerging technologies global within a decade rather than fifty years.
About the Event
Opened by Dr. Rahul Walawalkar, Founder & President of NETRA, the conference framed energy storage as the connective tissue of the clean energy transition — the technology that turns variable renewable generation into dispatchable, reliable power. Dr. Walawalkar keynote, “The Decade of World Energy Storage Day,” traced the journey storage has taken: from 15–30 minute discharge systems to today’s 6–10 hour projects, with seasonal and multi-day storage identified as the next major technical challenge over the coming decade. He also introduced NETRA role as a global “connectivity layer” — helping organizations working on solar, wind, lithium-ion, and EV manufacturing share hard-won lessons with the next generation of clean technologies, rather than each sector reinventing the wheel.
Global Market Perspectives
Representatives from Australia’s energy ecosystem — Vinod Kumar N of Austrade and Terry Mohn of the Australian Microgrid Centre of Excellence — detailed Australia’s position as a top-ranked global renewable market, its state-level long-duration storage targets, and the rise of micro-grids for remote communities, fleet charging, and data centers. Gauri Singh, Deputy Director-General of IRENA, shared global figures: 693 GW of renewable added in 2025, $103 billion invested in storage, and a shift from viewing storage as hardware to valuing it as a system service — underpinned by frameworks like virtual power plants and storage-as-a-service business models.
Policy, Finance & Manufacturing
Ashish Khanna, Director General of the International Solar Alliance, outlined ISA’s work across 129 countries on catalytic finance, capability-building, and the upcoming India Energy Storage Roadmap. Jimmy Pannete of the World Bank presented the Energy Storage Partnership (ESP), a 62-member global coalition helping developing economies deploy battery storage through policy advisory, blended finance, and capacity-building academies. On the manufacturing front, Vijayanand Samudrala (NETRA Board of Advisors, former CEO of Amara Raja) detailed India’s battery localization journey — a projected 236 GWh storage requirement by FY32, scaling toward nearly 2 TWh by 2047 — while Sandeep Tandon of India’s Anusandhan National Research Foundation (ANRF) previewed an upcoming battery storage R&D program with the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy.
Critical Minerals, Circularity & Supply Chains
Sessions from Sustainable Energy for All (SE4All) and WRI India (Madhav Pai, CEO) addressed the resilience of global mineral supply chains, India’s Battery 360 platform for startups and circularity, and the Battery Aadhaar concept for traceability and second-life batteries. The Global Battery Alliance’s Inga Peterson introduced the GBA’s 2026 Battery Passport — a digital product passport bringing verified sustainability data to battery supply chains ahead of its February 2027 certification launch, aligned with EU regulatory requirements.
Innovation, Research & Safety
Dr. Jagjit Nanda of Stanford’s SLAC Battery Innovation Center shared cutting-edge work on solid-state batteries, lithium-metal electrolytes, and earth-abundant sodium and manganese-based cathode chemistries well-suited to India’s mineral base. Dr. Judy Jeevarajan of UL Research Institutes and Haresh Kamath of EPRI addressed battery safety — from thermal runaway research to the striking finding that failure rates per deployed GWh have dropped 99% since 2018 — while the European Space Agency’s Maria Zaretskaya explored how space-derived data is being applied to clean energy planning.
New Initiatives Launched
The conference also served as a launchpad for several new NETRA initiatives: the NETRA Energy Transition Hackathon (in partnership with I4C, the organization behind Smart India Hackathon), a global member community on Mighty Networks, NETRA student clubs, scholarship partnerships with ScholarFi, the WiN with NETRA women’s leadership and mentorship program, and the Nidhi platform for collaborative policy engagement and opportunity-sharing. Climate Collective’s Nalin Agarwal also shared how startup ecosystems are scaling across the Global South, and Earth Day Network’s Debapriya Dutt reflected on a 25-year partnership with NETRA founders, connecting energy storage to Earth Day’s upcoming “Food for Our Planet” theme.
The Bigger Picture
Across every session, a consistent thread emerged: energy storage has moved from a niche technology to core infrastructure underpinning the entire clean energy transition — and the next decade’s challenge is less about proving the technology works and more about building the manufacturing scale, financing structures, policy frameworks, and global collaboration needed to deploy it everywhere it’s needed, safely and affordably.
