Liquid Air Energy Storage Patents: Leaders & Filing Trends 2026
- Concentrated at the top. The five most active assignees together hold 92 of the 159 records in scope (57.9%), with the leader alone at 65 filings.
- Filing has cooled since its peak. Activity peaked at 17 filings in 2018; by the 2022 midpoint it had settled at 16, and the trend since reads flat to declining rather than accelerating.
- Two IPC subclasses carry the field. Gas liquefaction (F25J) appears in 66.0% of records and thermal power plant claims (F01K) in 54.1%, while grid-integration classes stay under a quarter.
What the dataset covers
This landscape covers 159 published records filed between 2015 and mid-2026 that combine liquid air, cryogenic or LAES terminology with claim language on cold recycle, liquefaction efficiency, expansion turbines, storage tanks or round-trip efficiency, restricted to IPC classes F25J, H02J15 and F01K25. That search construction favours records that treat cryogenic storage as a system rather than a passing mention, so the set is narrower and more technically specific than a plain keyword search would return.
Because publication lags filing by roughly 18 months, the most recent year in the trend line is necessarily incomplete and should not be read as a drop-off. The record itself spans thermal storage architectures, liquefaction plant design, expansion-turbine power recovery and grid-facing integration, with receiving offices led by China, the United States and the United Kingdom.
Filing trend and technology composition
Two views of the same 159 records: how filing activity has moved year over year, and which IPC subclasses carry the underlying claims.
Filing trend, 2017–2026
Filings rose to a peak of 17 in 2018, held near that level through the 2022 midpoint at 16, and the line since reads flat to declining. Treat the final year as understated given the usual 18-month publication lag rather than as a genuine collapse in activity.
IPC subclass composition
F25J (gas liquefaction and separation) and F01K (steam and thermal power plants) dominate, appearing in 66.0% and 54.1% of the 159 records respectively. Storage-vessel claims (F17C, 22.0%) and grid-systems claims (H02J, 20.1%) trail well behind, and because records can carry multiple IPC classes these shares sum to more than 100% of the record total.
Shares are the percentage of the 159 records in scope. A patent can carry several IPC classes, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
Go deeper on Liquid Air and Cryogenic Energy Storage with Eureka
This page is one run against one query. Ask Eureka your own question about liquid air and cryogenic energy storage and every answer comes back with the patent numbers behind it.
Try EurekaRepresentative filing and most-cited records
GB2494400A — Cryogenic energy storage system
The system pairs a cryogenic storage tank with a pump that compresses cryogen and routes it through a heat exchanger fed by a thermal store, then through a power-recovery turbine to generate electricity. A co-located liquefier regenerates cryogen for storage using a second heat exchanger that returns heat to the same thermal store, with the heat-transfer fluid drawn from turbine exhaust gas.Filed by Highview Enterprises Limited; illustrates the closed-loop tank–liquefier–turbine architecture that recurs across the corpus.
| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | US20180163574A1 | Improvements in energy storage | 66 |
| 2 | US20120151961A1 | Liquid Air As Energy Storage | 62 |
| 3 | GB2537126A | Hybrid energy storage system | 39 |
| 4 | CN106437874A | 一种利用相变储能的新型液态空气储能系统 | 38 |
| 5 | CN105888742A | 一种高效液空储能/释能系统 | 37 |
| 6 | CN107489469A | 一种低温液态空气储能系统 | 29 |
| 7 | CN109812304A | 集成二氧化碳循环与液化空气储能的调峰发电系统及方法 | 28 |
| 8 | US20180221807A1 | Method for Liquid Air Energy Storage with Fueled and Zero Carbon Emitting Power Output Augmentation | 28 |
| 9 | GB2494400A | Cryogenic energy storage system | 27 |
| 10 | US20150218968A1 | Energy storage and recovery methods, systems, and devices | 26 |
Citation counts reflect influence within this searched corpus and skew toward older filings; they are not a measure of current commercial importance.
Patent titles are shown in the language they were filed in, not translated, so that each record stays verifiable against the original filing — a translated title will not match in Eureka or in any national register. Each row carries its publication number; clicking a row searches Eureka by that number.
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Three patterns stand out once the records are ranked, dated and classified: concentration among a small group of assignees, a filing trend past its peak, and a technology mix weighted toward liquefaction and thermal plant claims over grid integration.
Activity sits with a small group of filers
The top five assignees combined account for 92 of the 159 records in scope, and the leader alone holds 65. That leaves a long tail across the remaining ranked companies, many with only one or two filings, which is typical of a field still dominated by a handful of specialist developers rather than broad industrial adoption.
Filing activity has not kept climbing
The trend peaked in 2018 and, by the 2022 midpoint, filings had settled back to 16 a year rather than continuing to rise. Combined with the usual reporting lag on the most recent year, this reads as a maturing rather than an accelerating field.
Liquefaction and thermal-plant claims dominate
Gas liquefaction and separation (F25J) and steam and thermal power plant claims (F01K) between them cover the large majority of records, while grid-systems claims (H02J, 20.1%) and pressure-vessel storage claims (F17C, 22.0%) are comparatively under-represented given the field's stated purpose of grid-scale storage.
China leads receiving offices, ahead of the US and UK
China accounts for the largest share of receiving-office filings at 48, ahead of the United States at 32 and the United Kingdom at 20, with Europe, WIPO and Australia trailing behind. That spread suggests parallel commercial interest in both Chinese domestic deployment and Western-originated core IP.
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to liquid air and cryogenic energy storage, with the prior art for and against each one.
Who is active, and where the gaps sit
The ranked leaders hold a disproportionate share of filings, but recent-year momentum shows most named assignees, including the historical leader, with no filings in the latest year — consistent with a field past its early filing peak.
A single assignee dominates the ranking
The leading assignee holds 65 of the 159 records in scope, well ahead of the fifth-place holder at 5. That gap is unusually wide for a 55-company ranking and points to one organisation's IP position as the reference point anyone else entering the space has to design around.
Filings thin out quickly past the top ten
By tenth place, holdings drop to 4 records, and the top ten combined still only reach 71.1% of the 159 records in scope. The remaining ranked companies each hold small, likely defensive or first-mover positions rather than broad portfolios.
State-grid entities co-file with each other
The strongest co-assignee pairing in the dataset links two state grid research and operating entities, filing together four times. That pattern points to grid-operator-led development rather than pure equipment-vendor IP in at least part of the corpus.
| Assignee | Recent year | YoY |
|---|---|---|
| Highview Enterprises Limited | 1 | — |
| SINATOV STANISLAV | 0 | — |
| Technical Institute of Physics and Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences | 0 | — |
| Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC | 0 | — |
| INNOVATIUM LLP | 0 | — |
| CNOOC Gas & Power Group Co., Ltd. | 0 | — |
| UNIV OF ZWAZULU NATAL | 0 | — |
| State Grid Smart Grid Research Institute Co., Ltd. | 0 | — |
Where to take this
The dataset points to a field with a dominant early filer, a cooling filing trend, and claim density weighted toward liquefaction and thermal plant design over grid integration.
Map claims against the leader's portfolio
With one assignee holding 65 of 159 records, any new filing in tank, liquefier or turbine architecture should be checked against that portfolio specifically before drafting.
Explore assignee portfolios in EurekaTest the under-claimed branches
Grid-dispatch integration and pressure-vessel storage materials carry lower claim density than liquefaction and thermal-plant subclasses, which is where freedom to operate is more likely to exist.
Run a white-space search in EurekaCommon questions on liquid air and cryogenic energy storage patents
One assignee dominates this dataset, holding 65 of the 159 records in scope, which is far ahead of the fifth-ranked company at 5 records. This concentration means that a single organisation's patent position, built around cryogenic tank, liquefier and turbine architecture, is the reference point most new entrants need to design around. The remaining 54 ranked companies each hold comparatively small portfolios, forming a long tail typical of a field still led by a small number of specialist developers rather than diversified industrial players.
Filing activity peaked at 17 records in 2018 and had settled to 16 by the 2022 midpoint, so the trend reads as flat to declining rather than accelerating. The most recent year in any patent dataset is always understated because publication typically lags filing by around 18 months, so the final data points should not be read as a real collapse in interest. Taken together, the pattern looks like a technology area that had an early surge of filing and has since matured rather than one still in rapid growth.
Gas liquefaction and separation claims (IPC class F25J) appear in 66.0% of the 159 records, and steam and thermal power plant claims (F01K) appear in 54.1%, making these the two dominant technology areas. Pressure-vessel and gas-storage claims (F17C) and power-grid-system claims (H02J) each cover roughly a fifth of records, meaning claim density on the storage-tank and grid-integration side is noticeably lighter than on the core liquefaction and thermodynamic-cycle side. Because a single record can carry multiple IPC classes, these shares add up to more than 100% of the record total and should be read individually, not summed.
China is the largest receiving office in this dataset with 48 filings, ahead of the United States at 32 and the United Kingdom at 20. Europe via the EPO, the WIPO PCT route, and Australia follow with smaller counts. This spread indicates the technology is being pursued both through domestic Chinese filings and through the international and UK-origin filing routes associated with early commercial developers in the space.
GB2494400A, assigned to Highview Enterprises Limited, describes a cryogenic energy storage system combining a storage tank, a pump that compresses cryogen for delivery to a heat exchanger fed by a thermal store, and a power-recovery turbine, alongside a co-located liquefier that regenerates cryogen using a second heat exchanger and turbine exhaust heat. It matters because this closed-loop tank–liquefier–turbine architecture recurs across the wider corpus, making it a useful reference point for understanding what a baseline system claim in this field looks like and where a new filing would need to differentiate.
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Disclaimer. This page is generated from Patsnap Eureka data drawn from a limited snapshot of global patent and scientific-literature records, and is provided for general information and reference only.
Patent data carries inherent limitations: recent filings (typically the most recent 18–24 months) are under-counted due to standard publication lag; counts may be reported at either a patent-family or a patent-record basis and are not always directly comparable; classification, applicant-name, and citation data may contain errors, duplicates, or omissions; and the underlying search query defines and constrains the scope shown. As a result, the analysis may be incomplete or inaccurate and may not reflect the full technology landscape.
Nothing on this page constitutes an exhaustive prior-art, novelty, freedom-to-operate, or validity search, nor does it constitute legal, financial, investment, or professional advice, and it should not be relied upon as such. Any patent, commercial, or strategic decision should be verified independently and reviewed with qualified patent, legal, and domain professionals. Patsnap makes no warranties, express or implied, as to the accuracy, completeness, or fitness for any particular purpose of the information presented.
Machine translation. Assignee and organisation names originally recorded in Chinese, Japanese or Korean have been rendered into English by an AI translation step so that the tables stay readable. These renderings are best-effort and may not match a company’s registered English name; the original name is what the underlying patent record carries, and it is what any Eureka query launched from this page uses.