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Battery factories are being build as quickly as possible. That is certainly true. However we're still at the level where one small countries electricity demand

Battery factories are being build as quickly as possible. That is certainly true. However we're still at the level where one small countries electricity demand would demand a significant percentage of global production for some years to build out. That puts us many years away from grid storage being useable worldwide. Vehicle to grid is interesting but the number of chargers which currently support it very low. It requires a non-trivial amount of infrastructure to invert high voltage DC from the battery back back to a grid synchronous AC signal. In addition to the extra wear on the battery it's had to see how this would be good value while being acceptable to consumers. In some respects recycling of batteries after their service life in a car is a more interesting scenario for grid storage.

Retric 6y ago
Current manufacturing capacity is irrelevant as we only need to keep up with solar power generation capacity. Assuming 100GWh of battery manufacturing capacity is built per year that will provide a 20h worth of the world’s electricity demand in ~32 years. However that’s quite conservative, we can extend battery manufacturing much faster than that.
- VBprogrammer 6y ago
  If you are trying to price something which requires more than the annual production capacity you have to account for the impact your own buying is going to have on the price. I'm not sure how you can wave that away.
  - Retric 6y ago
    Steady ramping up production of a manufactured item lowers per unit prices. So, sure considering the price drop is relevant from an adoption standpoint, but manufacturing capacity is what’s at issue not cost.
    - VBprogrammer 6y ago
      Electric vehicle production is already constrained by battery capacity. Increasing capacity leads to efficiency which leads to the price going doing. Except when the demand is outstripping supply. Which of us right? I guess we can agree to meet up in 20 years and find out.
      - Retric 6y ago
        EV production is only constrained on a month by month basis. Going year over year the ~40% compound annually ramp up in production would hit 100% of new car sales going EV in by 2032. That’s clearly not going to happen so things are slowing down. That said, grid batteries should ideally be using different chemistry to handle the increased charge/discharge cycling.
        VBprogrammer 6y ago
        > That said, grid batteries should ideally be using different chemistry to handle the increased charge/discharge cycling. I completely agree with this. It would actually be quite unusual if the same solution fit such different problem domains. Energy density by weight is an (almost) non issue in fixed installations, by volume only slightly more important. Lifetime cost and maintenance requirements as by far the largest issue. At the moment it feels like the stage in the 60s where people thought turbines were interesting so tried to cram them into cars, trucks and trains. Except here we are trying to wire together millions of tiny lithium cells to get enough energy to power a country.
        ben_w 6y ago
        > I completely agree with this. It would actually be quite unusual if the same solution fit such different problem domains. Energy density by weight is an (almost) non issue in fixed installations, by volume only slightly more important. Lifetime cost and maintenance requirements as by far the largest issue. Likewise. It currently seems to me that the same chemistries are being used for both simply because the cost reduction due to mass production for cars has made it the current cheapest option, but I don’t expect that to be true forever.

Retric 6y ago

Current manufacturing capacity is irrelevant as we only need to keep up with solar power generation capacity. Assuming 100GWh of battery manufacturing capacity is built per year that will provide a 20h worth of the world’s electricity demand in ~32 years. However that’s quite conservative, we can extend battery manufacturing much faster than that.

VBprogrammer 6y ago
If you are trying to price something which requires more than the annual production capacity you have to account for the impact your own buying is going to have on the price. I'm not sure how you can wave that away.
- Retric 6y ago
  Steady ramping up production of a manufactured item lowers per unit prices. So, sure considering the price drop is relevant from an adoption standpoint, but manufacturing capacity is what’s at issue not cost.
  - VBprogrammer 6y ago
    Electric vehicle production is already constrained by battery capacity. Increasing capacity leads to efficiency which leads to the price going doing. Except when the demand is outstripping supply. Which of us right? I guess we can agree to meet up in 20 years and find out.
    - Retric 6y ago
      EV production is only constrained on a month by month basis. Going year over year the ~40% compound annually ramp up in production would hit 100% of new car sales going EV in by 2032. That’s clearly not going to happen so things are slowing down. That said, grid batteries should ideally be using different chemistry to handle the increased charge/discharge cycling.
      - VBprogrammer 6y ago
        > That said, grid batteries should ideally be using different chemistry to handle the increased charge/discharge cycling. I completely agree with this. It would actually be quite unusual if the same solution fit such different problem domains. Energy density by weight is an (almost) non issue in fixed installations, by volume only slightly more important. Lifetime cost and maintenance requirements as by far the largest issue. At the moment it feels like the stage in the 60s where people thought turbines were interesting so tried to cram them into cars, trucks and trains. Except here we are trying to wire together millions of tiny lithium cells to get enough energy to power a country.
        ben_w 6y ago
        > I completely agree with this. It would actually be quite unusual if the same solution fit such different problem domains. Energy density by weight is an (almost) non issue in fixed installations, by volume only slightly more important. Lifetime cost and maintenance requirements as by far the largest issue. Likewise. It currently seems to me that the same chemistries are being used for both simply because the cost reduction due to mass production for cars has made it the current cheapest option, but I don’t expect that to be true forever.