Ruthenium(II) polypyridyl complexes with pendant bithienyl ligands exhibiting unusually long-lived (tau similar to 3-7 mu s) charge-separated excited states and a large amount of stored energy (Delta G degrees similar to 2.0 eV) are reported. A long-lived ligand-localized triplet acts as an energy reservoir to fuel population of an interligand charge-transfer state via an intermediate metal-to-ligand charge-transfer state in these complexes.