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Never understood why with a B2B average volume weighted battery cost of 137$/kwh per BNEF do LFP batteries for retail always start at 500$/kwh or so including T

Never understood why with a B2B average volume weighted battery cost of 137$/kwh per BNEF do LFP batteries for retail always start at 500$/kwh or so including Tesla powerwall. I understand part of it is inverter and may be BMS but still the difference is excessive. Stationary storage should not cost > 200 $/kwh and hopefully as demand accelerates we see these prices soon.

baybal2 6y ago
The retail price of LFP batteries outside of China is a grand ripoff given that automotive sector, allegedly, already gets automotive grade cells (which are superior to storage grade) for $50-$60 kWh. But even this way, I don't see battery storage becoming a thing economics wise, except in places where electricity supply itself is unreliable. Grid scale storage can be made incomparably cheaper with things other than batteries, especially if storage periods are just few hours.
- AstralStorm 6y ago
  Or other kinds of batteries than automotive grade lithium-ion, such as sodium sulphate molten salt, or pumped water storage.
  - caeril 6y ago
    Yup. There's also a lot of room at the utility scale for improved designs of the old Edison batteries. Nickel-Iron chemistries are heavy and initially expensive, but: 1. They can last effectively forever with periodic electrolyte topoff, proper charge control, decent thermal management, and good contaminant prevention policies. 2. They (and their electrolyte effluvia) aren't terribly toxic. Most other utility scale chemistries have limited lifespans and degrees of toxicity and disposal/recycling difficulties. Hell, this could even be a Long Now project: design and operate a 10,000 year utility-scale NiFe battery. There's no theoretical reason why not.
  - pjc50 6y ago
    Energy density of pumped storage is terrible, you're not using that for home energy storage unless you have your own pair of lakes.
- g8oz 6y ago
  Personally I think storage using hot rocks is going to be a big deal in the next 10 years. https://www.asme.org/topics-resources/content/heated-volcanic-rocks-store-energy https://www.asme.org/topics-resources/content/heated-volcani...
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
- pjc50 6y ago
  > especially if storage periods are just few hours. While I'm mostly a green-optimist with panels on my roof, I'm a little concerned about seasonality; it's hard to store for six months.
  - baybal2 6y ago
    If you have a grid, it's not an issue to rely on powerplants for that. Your biggest consumption/production variance is within 24 hours.
    - Scoundreller 6y ago
      Depends how close to the poles you get.
    - pjc50 6y ago
      This is why I made a graph: https://flatline.org.uk/daystats.html https://flatline.org.uk/daystats.html (click top graph for intraday detail). It's both, really, but then I am fairly far north. There's a three month period of daily production being <20% of summer peak.
      - baybal2 6y ago
        Uh, you must be living quite far up north! There are people living there, wow! (Snobbery of a man who used to live in tropics.) Just joking. Though, 26 vs 0.15 kwh variance is still nothing in comparison to the worst daily production on record, and nil you get at night. Well, can only say that there is nothing even imaginable on the horizon to being practical for seasonal scale energy storage. Even for a small country as UK, you will need a small ocean to store enough energy for one season worth of consumption.
  - Scoundreller 6y ago
    Just need some system to construct solid fuel blocks with that excess energy. Could bypass the panels and create wood, but maybe there are other better strategies. Maybe some places can fit a hydrogen storage cavern in their backyard.

baybal2 6y ago

The retail price of LFP batteries outside of China is a grand ripoff given that automotive sector, allegedly, already gets automotive grade cells (which are superior to storage grade) for $50-$60 kWh. But even this way, I don't see battery storage becoming a thing economics wise, except in places where electricity supply itself is unreliable. Grid scale storage can be made incomparably cheaper with things other than batteries, especially if storage periods are just few hours.

AstralStorm 6y ago
Or other kinds of batteries than automotive grade lithium-ion, such as sodium sulphate molten salt, or pumped water storage.
- caeril 6y ago
  Yup. There's also a lot of room at the utility scale for improved designs of the old Edison batteries. Nickel-Iron chemistries are heavy and initially expensive, but: 1. They can last effectively forever with periodic electrolyte topoff, proper charge control, decent thermal management, and good contaminant prevention policies. 2. They (and their electrolyte effluvia) aren't terribly toxic. Most other utility scale chemistries have limited lifespans and degrees of toxicity and disposal/recycling difficulties. Hell, this could even be a Long Now project: design and operate a 10,000 year utility-scale NiFe battery. There's no theoretical reason why not.
- pjc50 6y ago
  Energy density of pumped storage is terrible, you're not using that for home energy storage unless you have your own pair of lakes.
g8oz 6y ago
Personally I think storage using hot rocks is going to be a big deal in the next 10 years. https://www.asme.org/topics-resources/content/heated-volcanic-rocks-store-energy https://www.asme.org/topics-resources/content/heated-volcani...
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
pjc50 6y ago
> especially if storage periods are just few hours. While I'm mostly a green-optimist with panels on my roof, I'm a little concerned about seasonality; it's hard to store for six months.
- baybal2 6y ago
  If you have a grid, it's not an issue to rely on powerplants for that. Your biggest consumption/production variance is within 24 hours.
  - Scoundreller 6y ago
    Depends how close to the poles you get.
  - pjc50 6y ago
    This is why I made a graph: https://flatline.org.uk/daystats.html https://flatline.org.uk/daystats.html (click top graph for intraday detail). It's both, really, but then I am fairly far north. There's a three month period of daily production being <20% of summer peak.
    - baybal2 6y ago
      Uh, you must be living quite far up north! There are people living there, wow! (Snobbery of a man who used to live in tropics.) Just joking. Though, 26 vs 0.15 kwh variance is still nothing in comparison to the worst daily production on record, and nil you get at night. Well, can only say that there is nothing even imaginable on the horizon to being practical for seasonal scale energy storage. Even for a small country as UK, you will need a small ocean to store enough energy for one season worth of consumption.
- Scoundreller 6y ago
  Just need some system to construct solid fuel blocks with that excess energy. Could bypass the panels and create wood, but maybe there are other better strategies. Maybe some places can fit a hydrogen storage cavern in their backyard.