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Power

Plunge in Storage Battery Costs Will Speed Shift to Renewable Energy, Says IEA (reuters.com) 100

"In less than 15 years, battery costs have fallen by more than 90%," according to a new report from the International Energy Agency, "one of the fastest declines ever seen in clean energy technologies."

And it's expected to get even cheaper, reports Reuters: An expected sharp fall in battery costs for energy storage in coming years will accelerate the shift to renewable energy from fossil fuels, the International Energy Agency (IEA) said on Thursday... The total capital costs of battery storage are due to tumble by up to 40% by 2030, the Paris-based watchdog said in its Batteries and Secure Energy Transitions report.

"The combination of solar PV (photovoltaic) and batteries is today competitive with new coal plants in India," said IEA Executive Director Fatih Birol. "And just in the next few years, it will be cheaper than new coal in China and gas-fired power in the United States. Batteries are changing the game before our eyes." [...] The global market for energy storage doubled last year to over 90 gigawatt-hours (GWh), the report said...

The slide in battery costs will also help provide electricity to millions of people without access, cutting by nearly half the average electricity costs of mini-grids with solar PV coupled with batteries by 2030, the IEA said.

The Los Angeles Times notes one place adopting the tech is California: Standing in the middle of a solar farm in Yolo County, [California governor] Newsom announced the state now had battery storage systems with the capacity of more than 10,000 megawatts — about 20% of the 52,000 megawatts the state says is needed to meet its climate goals.
Although Newsom acknowledged it isn't yet enough to eliminate blackouts...
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Plunge in Storage Battery Costs Will Speed Shift to Renewable Energy, Says IEA

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  • In other news, utility companies project profits to increase by 90% in the next 15 years.
  • Water is still wet

    Human beings still age.

    Film at 11

    Must Be A Slow News Cycle At /. To Bore Us With 'Filler' Articles Like This

  • "In less than 15 years, battery costs have fallen by more than 90%" - then why oh why have EV prices not fallen with them? Smells like BS to me.

    • by shmlco ( 594907 )

      You may have noticed the EVs are now available for under $100K. Regardless:

      Nissan LEAF: $29,280
      Mini Cooper SE: $31,895
      Hyundai Kona Electric: $34,000
      Hyundai Ioniq 6: $38,650
      Tesla Model 3: $40,380
      Kia Niro EV: $40,975
      Volkswagen ID.4: $41,160
      Ford Mustang Mach-E: $41,890
      Hyundai Ioniq 5: $43,175

    • I assume you're the same sort of person who says, "Global warming is BS because it snowed yesterday!"

      First, we 're talking 15 years. Not days. Not months. Years. So let's go back to 2009--fifteen years ago--and look at the price of EVs, shall we?

      Well, you had the Tesla Roadster that cost $109,000 and had a battery capacity of 53 kWh. Today, I see a Tesla Model 3 with a 57.5 kWh battery for $40,630. So that seems like a pretty good drop.

      Now, I'll admit that's not really fair. Tesla, at the time, was b

      • by vux984 ( 928602 )

        You also had the Nissan LEAF in 2009.

        "Well, you had the Tesla Roadster that cost $109,000 and had a battery capacity of 53 kWh. Today, I see a Tesla Model 3 with a 57.5 kWh battery for $40,630. So that seems like a pretty good drop."

        Apples to Bananas. I mean... to compare a Tesla Roadster to a Model 3 ? You might as well compare it to the upcoming 2026 Tesla Roadster - Its at least as fair (unfair?) a comparison -- except that's going to be 200,000 to 250,000. So it doesn't really support your point.

        Now in

        • by grunter ( 35840 )
          The ~30k 2010 Nissan LEAF had a 23KwH battery, and the ~30k current LEAF has a 40KwH battery. https://www.in2013dollars.com/... [in2013dollars.com] says that the 2010 LEAF cost thus around $43k USD in today's money. While the battery is the most expensive component of an EV, not the only one. If you assume the battery is 1/3 of the price of the car, and using the inflation factor referenced above, you were getting around 2.3wH/$ then and you're getting around 4wH/$ now. Yep, not what the article says, though I think that t
  • ... of the solar and wind generators, battery storage costs nothing. Because they aren't going to build it.

    Never mind that the concept of "dispatchable power" demands that suppliers guarantee some level of certainty that power will be there when the system operator requests that your source be brought on line. To the point that its up to you (the supplier) to line up alternate sources through contracts or exchange agreements should your supply fail. It was never the system operator, the transmission grid

  • Despite this being a sizable decrease it is far from tumble.

  • by Budenny ( 888916 ) on Monday April 29, 2024 @03:26AM (#64432128)

    "Newsom announced the state now had battery storage systems with the capacity of more than 10,000 megawatts â" about 20% of the 52,000 megawatts the state says is needed to meet its climate goals."

    And for how many hours can these 10,000 megawatts be supplied? That's the question.

    Similarly with the 52,000. Again, how many hours storage are needed at this rate of discharge?

    A 90% drop seems like a lot. But its over 15 years, starting from tiny production levels. The interesting question for the future of grid level battery storage is how much costs fell in the last couple of years. Not much.

    The future of grid level wind and solar is parallel amounts of gas generation. The more wind and solar you put in, the more gas you have to put in. Wind and solar can supplement gas, not the other way around.

    Read the UK Royal Society report on energy storage:

    https://royalsociety.org/news-... [royalsociety.org]

    • by CEC-P ( 10248912 )
      Yeah, someone should really have told him that battery capacity isn't measures in watts. I've got some 18650 cells that can individually output 170 watts continuous. Take a guess how long they can do that for.
    • Power (GW) is just as important for battery storage as energy (GWh), you need to have sufficient power to cover the 95th percentile worst-case load, and sufficient energy capacity to cover that load for the 95th percentile worst-case duration or something like that. Tesla touts the power capability of the powerwall more than the storage quantity, I suspect it's the larger engineering challenge... after all, to add storage capacity you just add cells, but to add power throughput in that application you need

  • that I plastered all over my house for $1 per square meter.
    A $12 home battery would make a great addition.

  • Really? Lets be real here. What exactly is "clean" about a lithium battery?

  • The demand for batteries is likely to outstrip supply, so even if mfring costs decline, prices will rise.

It is not best to swap horses while crossing the river. -- Abraham Lincoln

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