CEO Strategic Leadership Series
Energy Sector
The North American energy-storage market is diverging into two distinct strategic paths:
1. Fast Cycling Storage (1–4 hours)
Optimized for arbitrage, frequency regulation, and renewables smoothing.
2. Long Duration Storage (8–100+ hours)
Critical for firm capacity, seasonal balancing, and deep decarbonization.
Today’s investment overwhelmingly favours fast cycling — but long duration will be the backbone of a stable, low-carbon grid. Companies that lock themselves into the wrong storage architecture will face stranded assets and regulatory misalignment.
Technologies like flow batteries, compressed-air storage, thermal storage, hydrogen storage, and next-generation mechanical systems are advancing quickly. Regulatory frameworks in New York, California, Alberta, and Ontario are beginning to incorporate long-duration incentives.
Industrial and commercial energy users must forecast which storage class aligns with their operational profile. Utilities must plan hybrid architectures. Developers must anticipate regulatory pathways and build the right portfolio mix.
Choosing the wrong storage roadmap will become one of the largest opportunity-cost mistakes of the 2020s.
How Arcus Can Help
Arcus builds storage-portfolio strategies, models long-duration economics, and helps utilities and industrials design optimal hybrid configurations.
Next step: Engage Arcus for a Storage Roadmap Blueprint aligned to your operational and regulatory environment.
Arcus offers clients a unique combination of fact-based industry knowledge and superior functional expertise. Our consultants have an average of over 22 years experience, twice the industry average. Find out more about our growth, change management and operations services.
At Arcus we believe that a strategy is only as good as the results it delivers. Strategic outcomes are most predictable and effective when companies develop a portfolio of initiatives that are aligned with core competencies and aligned activities enable the company to offer a superior value proposition.
Please contact Arcus for case studies and to discuss how we can help you.
Service coverage
The variety, breadth, and depth of the projects where Arcus can be a resource are made unique by each client’s specific needs. By providing a very small sample of projects we’ve completed, we can help you understand how and when to use our services. Visit the links below to find out more about a specific problem or opportunity you would like to address.
Below is a sample of the range of services that Arcus has provided to clients.
- A survey of 2,350 consumers and 1,320 business leaders for feedback on sustainability trends
- Architecting a multi-year change strategy for a Fortune 500 company
- Mentoring a CEO on organizational change
- Excellence transformation of a leading B2B services company
- Creating a new sales deployment model for a healthcare company
- Developing a position evaluation and compensation model for a professional medical association
- Improving services to customer segments by deepening their understanding of customer attitudes
“Arcus manages to consistently deliver tangible results on market research and strategy projects. They combine deep business expertise, powerful research capabilities, and innovative thinking to deliver substantial value.”
– Vice President, Nikon
Data Dashboards
- Empower your decision-making with comprehensive, trusted data.
- Gain actionable insights with access to real-time Canadian consumer, business and sector spending and location data.
- Inform economic policy, investments, sales deployment and strategic plans by looking at trends across different industries and regions in Canada.
- Influence your businesses’ future growth plans by understanding consumer behaviour
Media Coverage
Arcus has been quoted extensively in media on a range of topics and can offer research studies, insights and ideas. Here are some examples from the Globe and Mail, BNN, CTV, Global TV and others.
- Federal budget – Canada’s GDP and Canadian businesses – BNN
- Economies are on different tracks: USMCA renegotiations – BNN
- Klarna on the evolution of digital payment tech – BNN
- Canada’s retail sector round up – BNN
- Buy now, pay later will become a $950M industry in Canada – BNN
- Nordstrom countdown to opening begins – Toronto Star
- No lineups outside stores in five years – BNN
- Black Friday retail, marketing, and cross-border shopping trends – BNN
- Does global expansion need a local flavour? – Globe and Mail
- Art of the Pitch – Protect company’s interests when approaching giants – Globe and Mail
- Off-the-shelf technology or a custom design? – Globe and Mail