3 ms·

So having failed to solve it, scientists say it never needed solving in the first place? Well it makes a change from "in conclusion, we need more funding" I gue

• epistasis 9y ago
  This sort of biased cynicism is really uncalled for. From the science side, it is solved. What's needed is implementation from industry to make it cost effective and have large enough scale. This is already happening. Grid-scale lithium ion storage is cost effective enough to replace California peaker plants that run on natural gas. In Arizona, the latest paired solar + storage project is selling electricity for $45/MWh. And the cost curve is continuing to fall for lithium ion at a fast and steady rate. The market for storage has developed so quickly that there hasn't even been time to set up subsidies for storage, before it was economical to start using it in practice. Some states are now implementing storage subsidies, however, which will extend storage into more applications where it's not yet economical, and give the industry a further kickstart. The question will be if demand response will be cheaper than storage, and if customers will put up with the hassle of demand response. As far as costs, not using electricity is hard to beat, investing in reducing consumption for identical work output, with efficiency measures, pay great dividends. Of course, for the common home owner, convincing them to spend $500 now, in order to save $1000 over the next 5 years, is a hard sell.