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Why battery costs have plunged since 2010

173 points by gok 5y ago

2Gkashmiri 5y ago
i can't seem to find any cheap battery sellers in india. $275/KWh is being sold on retail, someone even quoted me $450/KWh for 5kwh. this is absurd because the rates are nowhere near that, anyway to acquire like 20-30 or even 50kwh for my home at sane rates in india?
- epistasis 5y ago
  These averages come from much much higher quantities, and are not retail prices. There's also such significant demand that at the retail level, it's unlikely that you'll see < $150/kWh anytime soon, I would think. As batteries get cheaper, the potential market also gets much much much larger. At $275/kWh it is pretty attractive for a huge part of the consumer market, and almost no one knows that batteries are that cheap already. Really looking forward to a future with cheap energy storage and super cheap energy generation from solar and wind. It will enable a huge surge of productivity in the global south, especially if people can electrify without having to use super-expensive grid transmission systems.
  - 2Gkashmiri 5y ago
    i mean the lead acid in comparison seems dirt cheap, somewhere like INR 15000 for a 200ah12v which is 2400kwh or $187~. that is like $78/kwh so paying 3.5~times more for the tech is too much right now. i mean, sure there are benefits of longer life and deep discharge but the upfront cost at good quantities is too much. so if i had to get say 20kwh, or 48400 that would be like $5500 or inr440000. compared to a similar lead acid 19200wh, 12200*8 at inr 120000 or $1500. that is a large delta. i could be wrong in these rough calculations though
    - guerby 5y ago
      Lead acid has far fewer cycles (500 typical) than LFP (5000 typical) so if you look at the prices per kWh out from the battery LFP is way cheaper (and lighter). Even $250 per kWh of LFP storage with 5000 cycles means 5 cents per kWh out of the battery. And in reality the cost is even less since after 5000 cycles the battery will still have 70-80% of original capacity and can keep going for more cycles.
      - 2Gkashmiri 5y ago
        https://www.amazon.in/Luminous-12150H-Solar-Battery-Multicolour/dp/B075SRCS7V/ref=pd_rhf_dp_s_pop_multi_srecs_sabr_3/262-0302102-4896219 https://www.amazon.in/Luminous-12150H-Solar-Battery-Multicol... uh, this one says Long cycles (1500 @80% DOD, 5000 @ 20% DOD); AH efficiency > 90%; WH efficiency > 80% sure 1500 is not 5000 but its also not 500. second, it says 60 months warranty which they mean "replacement" so if i exhaust the 1500 in 5 years,they would replace it at no extra charge, suppose it happens after 4 years. the new batteries would give me another 4 ~ years so in total i would get around 5+4~5 years life out of paying just once. i'm not saying LFP is bad, just expensive.
        guerby 5y ago
        Price is 215 USD for 12x150 1.8 kWh (and 61 kg) looks very expensive to me for a very short lifetime (5000 at 20% DoD means 1000 cycle). (I assume shipping is free or do you have to pay it for warranty ?) I paid $100/kWh for LFP 3.2V 280Ah cells delivered from China to my country in Europe.
      - 2Gkashmiri 5y ago
        i can't seem to reply to your last comment so i am writing it here. these are amazon prices on https://www.amazon.in/Luminous-12150H-Solar-Battery-Multicolour/dp/B075SRCS7V https://www.amazon.in/Luminous-12150H-Solar-Battery-Multicol... i can get 200ah for this price for same 5 years warranty included and no shipping. its sold at the shop on the other block so shipping and warranty is included. oh, btw you cant really buy stuff from china to india. the borders are either closed or you have to pay 40% customs so that is out of question. the reason why i think LFP at 275 is expensive , again because the replacement before 5 years gives me another 5 years without paying again so essentially i would be getting for $1500, 12 * 200 * 16 and sure its bulky AF but i do not have to drive more than a mile for getting it to home so yeah
baybal2 5y ago
> But when batteries cost less than $100 per kWh You were already able to get LFP batteries outside of China for a bit cheaper than that for 2 years at car maker wholesale quantities. Battery cells plummeted as a part of vehicle cost. The cheapest cost I ever heard quoted in China was $64 per kw/h. I don't preclude that battery makers with own car factories like BYD have real costs around $30-$40. Taking cost at $40, BYD Dolphin had $1200 in it, comparable to costs economy class IC cars have in their whole powertrain. But EV vehicles are on overall easier to engineer. Part counts of EVs are much smaller than IC cars. More importantly, you can deliver satisfying driving experience with much smaller car if you use electric traction, while <999cc engines will have small powerbands no matter what amount of smarts is added to their ECUs. I always tell that 1-to-1 IC, and EV comparisons make little sense. EVs are a whole different class of vehicles.
- coryrc 5y ago
  I have bought shipments of 15kwh of LFP (Thundersky, SkyEnergy) for $0.5/kwh, delivered to USA, ten years ago. (EV conversions)
  - pbasista 5y ago
    > $0.5/kwh This seems to be wrong by an order of magnitude. $500/kWh is more plausible at that time. Otherwise you are claiming that you paid $7.5 for a 15 kWh worth of cells, including the shipping, in ~2010.
    - coryrc 5y ago
      Oh, yes, wrong units. $0.5/Wh => $500/kWh Hmm, so $100/kWh is really good!
- geokon 5y ago
  Any idea what the depreciation on batteries is? If you "used up" battery that's due to be sent to the recycler, How much of that 1200 could you hope to recoup? (I assume a power train can only be sold for scrap for a tiny fraction)
tomrod 5y ago
The author of this is Timothy B Lee, which if I am understanding correctly also writes for Ars Technica. He's a good one to follow. I look forward to reading more of his FullStackEconomics posts.
- aitchnyu 5y ago
  Damn, I thought Timothy Berners-Lee got a "pen name" in a new career as technology writer.
- ravedave5 5y ago
  No articles on ars since june, and twitter seems to indicate he's moved on from there - https://twitter.com/binarybits https://twitter.com/binarybits
hunglee2 5y ago
Some ideas here that can be applied to human-scale personal development "experience curve" - the more you do something, the easier it gets. Hence, ship daily
gibolt 5y ago
The follow-up to this article would discuss the effects of falling costs on accelerating the transition. Massive battery installations plus solar are already cheaper than operating an *existing* natural gas peaker plant in California. Batteries that are 50% cheaper will make that true across the U.S. That could happen by 2025 if Tesla's new battery process is successful. Battery installations' faster response to grid demand also means they can quickly undercut remaining operating non-baseline usage, making the most polluting plants even less economically viable. Excess storage in EVs and batteries will allow flattening the duck curve to rely even more on efficient baseload and shift renewable energy production to times of demand. Things are going to go into overdrive faster than nearly all predictions... but still not fast enough for net zero :(
- jfoutz 5y ago
  Deep down, I think we're pretty much all fucked. We've gone too far and there's no way back. And I think you agree. But, hey, there is a glimmer of hope. It's not going to do a damn thing, but cycling instead of driving is still a bit of defiance, even if it's only symbolic. Realistically, we do have power and control over where and how we work. There is some real muscle in smart people working on hard problems. May not a win. I'm sure you understand the consequences of that. At least, I can go down swinging. As you say, things are going into overdrive. I'm not going to tell you how to live your life. I am going to encourage you to hold off on that heroin experiment for a while, maybe don't move to a tent in a national park just yet. Things are changing. We don't get a free pass. Some things are going to be real ugly. Maybe, MAYBE, things will be ok. The iceberg is out there. We're probably going to hit it. We all still have some agency (I hope). If you have to rearrange deck chairs, go for it. Give it a minute. We aren't sunk yet. It doesn't have to be an apocolypse just yet.
  - adflux 5y ago
    You know whats worse than people who say climate change doesnt exist? People like you who spout off unsubstantiated defeatist nonsense about "why it's too late" and "it doesn't matter". Because people like you trick others into thinking the same, and not giving a damn.
Jabed30 5y ago
https://www.kalporshujob.com/2021/12/ssc-result-2021.html https://www.kalporshujob.com/2021/12/ssc-result-2021.html
timonoko 5y ago
Methinks we are moving to wrong direction. Instead of massive battery farms, we should focus on intelligent metering. Every consumer should have wireless metering unit, which shows the price of electricity at every moment with big red numbers. Then it is your choice, you can waste your monies or invest on 100 kwh battery, which can also can optimize the charging-recharging cycle. In Europe the price of electricity is often momentarily negative, when there is good wind blowing. That would the time to bake the pie and clean youres freezer.
- anovikov 5y ago
  Problem with small installations is that they are a lot lot more expensive per kwh to run...
  - timonoko 5y ago
    Howcome? Same banks of 18650-batteries and inverters are cheap. Only problem are maybe the safety issues. But in multistory houses the batteries would be in the basement and only those display units are in the homes.
    - bluGill 5y ago
      Because large banks can amortize usage over many homes. A battery bank for your house needs to be large enough for your worst case usage even though you rarely get there. If you add up all the breakers in my box it is far more power than the power company can supply to my house - but I never use them all at once. My house has a backup generator that can supply far less than the power company: it is enough for typical use but I have to be careful when I'm using it. A large bank can take advantage that typical is far less than worst case, and not everyone will hit the worst case at the same time. Thus a large bank to supply the same number of users can be far smaller than every user having their own small bank. (though it is possible for all the small banks to supply to each other)
- 35mm 5y ago
  This already exists in the UK: https://octopus.energy/agile/ https://octopus.energy/agile/
netcan 5y ago
>> A 600-fold increase in battery production made batteries much cheaper. >> Economists have found that manufacturing costs often decline at a predictable rate. In a model known as an experience curve, costs fall by the same percentage (called the learning rate) each time industry-wide volume doubles... So somewhat of a meta... Moore's law is a specific instance. The Y axis is price. The X axis is production volume, not time. Usually, rising production volume must overcompensate for falling prices to maintain a such a trend. Lunar travel, for example, did not get much cheaper over the decades because volume didn't increase. The automobile industries' golden years of annual price improvements ended in the 1920s. The US market had peaked^, because demand for cars was finite.^ If the price of a car halves, we don't triple the number of cars we buy. With computing, demand (or capacity to consume) has been able to "keep up" with Moore's Law. The market overcompensates for falling chip prices with increased consumption. More X for the X-axis. I think this is where we are currently for electric. Home installation, commercial and grid installations are still speculative. Vehicles are no longer speculative. The demand is there. It's not open-ended like computing, because once every vehicle has a battery... But for the next few years, demand will predictably rise to overcompensate for falling prices. ^https://hbr.org/resources/images/article_assets/hbr/7409/74501_A.gif https://hbr.org/resources/images/article_assets/hbr/7409/745...
- bryanlarsen 5y ago
  Excellent point. We need about 50 TWh of batteries to convert the world's cars to electric, and a similar amount to convert the world's grid to renewables. We're currently producing about 0.3 TWh annually, and have more than that coming online in each of 2022, 2023, 2024 and 2025. So we should have at least a decade of strong demand to keep driving down prices. Of course those low prices will probably stimulate more use cases, but it does seem likely that those new uses aren't as large as vehicles or grid storage.
  - entropicgravity 5y ago
    It would require a lot fewer batteries if a large percentage of the cars were replaced with e-bikes. Not as crazy as it sounds now.
VLM 5y ago
At the consumer level, lower capacity batteries are now generally sold via higher capacity marketing. The world is flooded with 18650 size cells that are marketed at 2500+ mAh but measure 500 mAh. Certainly the higher profit margin on the consumer side must help the other less corrupt sectors.
- jacquesm 5y ago
  Plenty of them are labelled correctly and deliver as advertised. ~3400 mAh products are readily available from Samsung, Sanyo, Sony and LG. The best way to ensure you get quality product is to buy from a reputed middle-man, unless you plan to buy 100's of thousands of cells, then it will definitely be possible to go direct.
- zionic 5y ago
  maybe this is true for vape pens, but this is certainly not the case in the home energy storage sector.
  - VLM 5y ago
    Yes, that was exactly my point, that selling "2500" cells using "500" parts must be extremely profitable in the consumer sector, possibly in some sense funding the home energy storage sector.
SigmundA 5y ago
It's actually pretty amazing to watch how quickly LiFePO4 batteries are dropping in price over the last few years and how much better they are getting. You can get a 12v 100ah drop in replacement for about the same cost as a high lead acid AGM [1], and there are some really interesting rack mount 48v's at very low price per Wh [2]. These lithium iron batteries are more stable, have extremely long life and avoid cobalt and nickel while having only slightly less energy density. Pretty sure they poised to replace lead acid in almost all applications over the next few years. Tesla is finally replacing the lead acid 12v battery with a lithium 12v and of course they a going LifePO4 for the main pack in some lower end models. I just replaced my worn out high end AGM's in my RV with LiFePO4's, 3 times the price but 4 times the usable capacity in only slightly more space and much less voltage sag throughout the discharge cycle and much faster recharge acceptance and at least 6 times the cycle life, should be the last batteries I need to buy for it. 1. https://www.amazon.com/LiFePO4-Battery-2000-5000-battery-Off-Grid/dp/B08FMTRYPT https://www.amazon.com/LiFePO4-Battery-2000-5000-battery-Off... 2. https://jakiperbattery.com/product/jk48v100/ https://jakiperbattery.com/product/jk48v100/
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- tiahura 5y ago
  What’s happened with the 12V 100ah over the last year is literally unbelievable. During the pandemic supply crunch these things have gone from $1000 to $400.
- zionic 5y ago
  the new rack-mount LiFePO4 batteries are insane. I have multiple "server racks" with bus bars. Right now each 5KWH module is ~$1500 with fully integrated BMS and safety systems. If I need more storage I just order another one and slot it in. I could see these modules hitting $500 within 5 years.
  - jacquesm 5y ago
    What brand / model did you get?
specialist 5y ago
Good article. TLDR: Wright's Law, Jevon's Paradox, governmental policy. As editor, I would have encouraged author to include three more facets. What is the market size for batteries? Give me a range. From incremental replacement of existing tech to total switchover. Projections into the future. Per Wright's Law, driving down production costs, the marginal costs (?) of batteries will approach material costs. So what is that point and when will it happen? The driver for Wright's Law is investment. What is that shape? Spending $X billions will reduce the price of 1kwh of batteries by $Y dollars. Mostly to train us noob observers and misc other policy makers to think in these terms. So during the food fights over our futureperfect carbon negative economy, tax payers and lobbyists for the captains of industry can say stuff like "Ahem. Yes madam Senator, excellent question. Per our analysis, if the USA govt invests and underwrites 100 megabucks for the next decade, we'll bring to market 100 megawhats (sic), at below current prices and decreasing into the future, employing 100 kilopeeps (sic), resulting in 400 megabucks of tax and licensing revenue back to the USA govt over the next 40 years. Doing so will guarantee our grandchildren's economic security and prosperity. We ask for your support. Thank you."
- bryanlarsen 5y ago
  > Projections into the future. Per Wright's Law, driving down production costs, the marginal costs (?) of batteries will approach material costs. So what is that point and when will it happen? Batteries are price takers for materials such as iron, but for materials such as lithium, they are price setters. The price of lithium follows the same Wright's law curve as batteries do. Lithium is quite common, so its price decreases as quantities increase due to Wright's law. And batteries consume most of the world's lithium, so the lithium demand follow battery demand.
  - specialist 5y ago
    wrt price maker vs price taker, just to verify, batteries are a minor application for iron whereas lithium is the largest application (market). I ask because I hadn't heard that phrase before. (No reply necessary if I guessed correctly. :) )
echopurity 5y ago
Sure, subsidize the next unsustainable pyramid scheme on cars rather than public transit and walkable cities. It's the only way.
boringg 5y ago
Energy storage is following the solar curve in dropping prices from manufacturing - we've seen this for at least 5 years now...nothing new there. The funny thing about it - it isn't clear where the value really accrues. There is continual downward pressure on prices for the full system but there hasn't been particularly good ways to recoup value from the utilities models and bidding as merchant power is super tough to make money. If the hope that electricity prices keep going down from cheap solar (speculating future energy prices is a losers game) it only gets more difficult to install ESS systems. I.e. any system you install now will be out performed by the system in 2 years especially if you are in a bidding market. As someone who builds projects and invests in climate tech companies I find the prices coming down great and open up more opportunity but I just don't know where the value accrues. For example Fluence going public -- they make money on the control & IT side of the system. So any price decrease in the hardware (Siemens) will likely be recouped from Fluence in service costs. TL,DR; Glad the prices are coming down - I'm not entirely sure the narrative is right about where this goes and the gatekeepers (utilities + regulators) haven't fully bought in - ie compensation for the value proposition from ESS hasn't been proved en masse. Federal policies might be the finger on the scale that really continues to keep the growth of ESS + solar/wind going strong. We are going into uncharted waters for grid balancing though and I suspect the utilities will recoup money through system upgrade payments defrayed across the ratebase.
DmitryOlshansky 5y ago
> Cheap and reliable batteries will be essential for decarbonizing multiple industries. I wonder where all of the battery waste goes and if we are truly better off with piles of lithium batteries but reduced carbon footprint. Did I miss some recycling innovation for said batteries?
addicted 5y ago
The article appears to credit Tesla, but Tesla built the gigafactory with Panasonic. And Panasonic had invested, and received massive investment from the likes of Apple for years before. Also, note that the Gigafactory was built in 2014 but prices were dropping well before. The far more likely cause for the decline of batter prices (and why I had predicted they would decline in the early 2010s) was the massive investment by consumer electronics, and particularly smartphone makers, in better and cheaper battery technology. Elon Musk's best move was taking advantage of the investments the smartphone industry was putting into reducing battery costs.
- gibolt 5y ago
  The scale is completely different. Consumer electronics were step one, but will account for less than 1% of worldwide battery production and drop to negligible quantities. Tesla is pushing us towards Terawatt scale of production.

173 points by gok 5y ago

i can't seem to find any cheap battery sellers in india. $275/KWh is being sold on retail, someone even quoted me $450/KWh for 5kwh. this is absurd because the rates are nowhere near that, anyway to acquire like 20-30 or even 50kwh for my home at sane rates in india?

epistasis 5y ago
These averages come from much much higher quantities, and are not retail prices. There's also such significant demand that at the retail level, it's unlikely that you'll see < $150/kWh anytime soon, I would think. As batteries get cheaper, the potential market also gets much much much larger. At $275/kWh it is pretty attractive for a huge part of the consumer market, and almost no one knows that batteries are that cheap already. Really looking forward to a future with cheap energy storage and super cheap energy generation from solar and wind. It will enable a huge surge of productivity in the global south, especially if people can electrify without having to use super-expensive grid transmission systems.
- 2Gkashmiri 5y ago
  i mean the lead acid in comparison seems dirt cheap, somewhere like INR 15000 for a 200ah12v which is 2400kwh or $187~. that is like $78/kwh so paying 3.5~times more for the tech is too much right now. i mean, sure there are benefits of longer life and deep discharge but the upfront cost at good quantities is too much. so if i had to get say 20kwh, or 48400 that would be like $5500 or inr440000. compared to a similar lead acid 19200wh, 12200*8 at inr 120000 or $1500. that is a large delta. i could be wrong in these rough calculations though
  - guerby 5y ago
    Lead acid has far fewer cycles (500 typical) than LFP (5000 typical) so if you look at the prices per kWh out from the battery LFP is way cheaper (and lighter). Even $250 per kWh of LFP storage with 5000 cycles means 5 cents per kWh out of the battery. And in reality the cost is even less since after 5000 cycles the battery will still have 70-80% of original capacity and can keep going for more cycles.
    - 2Gkashmiri 5y ago
      https://www.amazon.in/Luminous-12150H-Solar-Battery-Multicolour/dp/B075SRCS7V/ref=pd_rhf_dp_s_pop_multi_srecs_sabr_3/262-0302102-4896219 https://www.amazon.in/Luminous-12150H-Solar-Battery-Multicol... uh, this one says Long cycles (1500 @80% DOD, 5000 @ 20% DOD); AH efficiency > 90%; WH efficiency > 80% sure 1500 is not 5000 but its also not 500. second, it says 60 months warranty which they mean "replacement" so if i exhaust the 1500 in 5 years,they would replace it at no extra charge, suppose it happens after 4 years. the new batteries would give me another 4 ~ years so in total i would get around 5+4~5 years life out of paying just once. i'm not saying LFP is bad, just expensive.
      - guerby 5y ago
        Price is 215 USD for 12x150 1.8 kWh (and 61 kg) looks very expensive to me for a very short lifetime (5000 at 20% DoD means 1000 cycle). (I assume shipping is free or do you have to pay it for warranty ?) I paid $100/kWh for LFP 3.2V 280Ah cells delivered from China to my country in Europe.
    - 2Gkashmiri 5y ago
      i can't seem to reply to your last comment so i am writing it here. these are amazon prices on https://www.amazon.in/Luminous-12150H-Solar-Battery-Multicolour/dp/B075SRCS7V https://www.amazon.in/Luminous-12150H-Solar-Battery-Multicol... i can get 200ah for this price for same 5 years warranty included and no shipping. its sold at the shop on the other block so shipping and warranty is included. oh, btw you cant really buy stuff from china to india. the borders are either closed or you have to pay 40% customs so that is out of question. the reason why i think LFP at 275 is expensive , again because the replacement before 5 years gives me another 5 years without paying again so essentially i would be getting for $1500, 12 * 200 * 16 and sure its bulky AF but i do not have to drive more than a mile for getting it to home so yeah

baybal2 5y ago

> But when batteries cost less than $100 per kWh You were already able to get LFP batteries outside of China for a bit cheaper than that for 2 years at car maker wholesale quantities. Battery cells plummeted as a part of vehicle cost. The cheapest cost I ever heard quoted in China was $64 per kw/h. I don't preclude that battery makers with own car factories like BYD have real costs around $30-$40. Taking cost at $40, BYD Dolphin had $1200 in it, comparable to costs economy class IC cars have in their whole powertrain. But EV vehicles are on overall easier to engineer. Part counts of EVs are much smaller than IC cars. More importantly, you can deliver satisfying driving experience with much smaller car if you use electric traction, while <999cc engines will have small powerbands no matter what amount of smarts is added to their ECUs. I always tell that 1-to-1 IC, and EV comparisons make little sense. EVs are a whole different class of vehicles.

coryrc 5y ago
I have bought shipments of 15kwh of LFP (Thundersky, SkyEnergy) for $0.5/kwh, delivered to USA, ten years ago. (EV conversions)
- pbasista 5y ago
  > $0.5/kwh This seems to be wrong by an order of magnitude. $500/kWh is more plausible at that time. Otherwise you are claiming that you paid $7.5 for a 15 kWh worth of cells, including the shipping, in ~2010.
  - coryrc 5y ago
    Oh, yes, wrong units. $0.5/Wh => $500/kWh Hmm, so $100/kWh is really good!
geokon 5y ago
Any idea what the depreciation on batteries is? If you "used up" battery that's due to be sent to the recycler, How much of that 1200 could you hope to recoup? (I assume a power train can only be sold for scrap for a tiny fraction)

tomrod 5y ago

The author of this is Timothy B Lee, which if I am understanding correctly also writes for Ars Technica. He's a good one to follow. I look forward to reading more of his FullStackEconomics posts.

aitchnyu 5y ago
Damn, I thought Timothy Berners-Lee got a "pen name" in a new career as technology writer.
ravedave5 5y ago
No articles on ars since june, and twitter seems to indicate he's moved on from there - https://twitter.com/binarybits https://twitter.com/binarybits

hunglee2 5y ago

Some ideas here that can be applied to human-scale personal development "experience curve" - the more you do something, the easier it gets. Hence, ship daily

gibolt 5y ago

The follow-up to this article would discuss the effects of falling costs on accelerating the transition. Massive battery installations plus solar are already cheaper than operating an *existing* natural gas peaker plant in California. Batteries that are 50% cheaper will make that true across the U.S. That could happen by 2025 if Tesla's new battery process is successful. Battery installations' faster response to grid demand also means they can quickly undercut remaining operating non-baseline usage, making the most polluting plants even less economically viable. Excess storage in EVs and batteries will allow flattening the duck curve to rely even more on efficient baseload and shift renewable energy production to times of demand. Things are going to go into overdrive faster than nearly all predictions... but still not fast enough for net zero :(

jfoutz 5y ago
Deep down, I think we're pretty much all fucked. We've gone too far and there's no way back. And I think you agree. But, hey, there is a glimmer of hope. It's not going to do a damn thing, but cycling instead of driving is still a bit of defiance, even if it's only symbolic. Realistically, we do have power and control over where and how we work. There is some real muscle in smart people working on hard problems. May not a win. I'm sure you understand the consequences of that. At least, I can go down swinging. As you say, things are going into overdrive. I'm not going to tell you how to live your life. I am going to encourage you to hold off on that heroin experiment for a while, maybe don't move to a tent in a national park just yet. Things are changing. We don't get a free pass. Some things are going to be real ugly. Maybe, MAYBE, things will be ok. The iceberg is out there. We're probably going to hit it. We all still have some agency (I hope). If you have to rearrange deck chairs, go for it. Give it a minute. We aren't sunk yet. It doesn't have to be an apocolypse just yet.
- adflux 5y ago
  You know whats worse than people who say climate change doesnt exist? People like you who spout off unsubstantiated defeatist nonsense about "why it's too late" and "it doesn't matter". Because people like you trick others into thinking the same, and not giving a damn.

Jabed30 5y ago

https://www.kalporshujob.com/2021/12/ssc-result-2021.html https://www.kalporshujob.com/2021/12/ssc-result-2021.html

timonoko 5y ago

Methinks we are moving to wrong direction. Instead of massive battery farms, we should focus on intelligent metering. Every consumer should have wireless metering unit, which shows the price of electricity at every moment with big red numbers. Then it is your choice, you can waste your monies or invest on 100 kwh battery, which can also can optimize the charging-recharging cycle. In Europe the price of electricity is often momentarily negative, when there is good wind blowing. That would the time to bake the pie and clean youres freezer.

anovikov 5y ago
Problem with small installations is that they are a lot lot more expensive per kwh to run...
- timonoko 5y ago
  Howcome? Same banks of 18650-batteries and inverters are cheap. Only problem are maybe the safety issues. But in multistory houses the batteries would be in the basement and only those display units are in the homes.
  - bluGill 5y ago
    Because large banks can amortize usage over many homes. A battery bank for your house needs to be large enough for your worst case usage even though you rarely get there. If you add up all the breakers in my box it is far more power than the power company can supply to my house - but I never use them all at once. My house has a backup generator that can supply far less than the power company: it is enough for typical use but I have to be careful when I'm using it. A large bank can take advantage that typical is far less than worst case, and not everyone will hit the worst case at the same time. Thus a large bank to supply the same number of users can be far smaller than every user having their own small bank. (though it is possible for all the small banks to supply to each other)
35mm 5y ago
This already exists in the UK: https://octopus.energy/agile/ https://octopus.energy/agile/

netcan 5y ago

>> A 600-fold increase in battery production made batteries much cheaper. >> Economists have found that manufacturing costs often decline at a predictable rate. In a model known as an experience curve, costs fall by the same percentage (called the learning rate) each time industry-wide volume doubles... So somewhat of a meta... Moore's law is a specific instance. The Y axis is price. The X axis is production volume, not time. Usually, rising production volume must overcompensate for falling prices to maintain a such a trend. Lunar travel, for example, did not get much cheaper over the decades because volume didn't increase. The automobile industries' golden years of annual price improvements ended in the 1920s. The US market had peaked^, because demand for cars was finite.^ If the price of a car halves, we don't triple the number of cars we buy. With computing, demand (or capacity to consume) has been able to "keep up" with Moore's Law. The market overcompensates for falling chip prices with increased consumption. More X for the X-axis. I think this is where we are currently for electric. Home installation, commercial and grid installations are still speculative. Vehicles are no longer speculative. The demand is there. It's not open-ended like computing, because once every vehicle has a battery... But for the next few years, demand will predictably rise to overcompensate for falling prices. ^https://hbr.org/resources/images/article_assets/hbr/7409/74501_A.gif https://hbr.org/resources/images/article_assets/hbr/7409/745...

bryanlarsen 5y ago
Excellent point. We need about 50 TWh of batteries to convert the world's cars to electric, and a similar amount to convert the world's grid to renewables. We're currently producing about 0.3 TWh annually, and have more than that coming online in each of 2022, 2023, 2024 and 2025. So we should have at least a decade of strong demand to keep driving down prices. Of course those low prices will probably stimulate more use cases, but it does seem likely that those new uses aren't as large as vehicles or grid storage.
- entropicgravity 5y ago
  It would require a lot fewer batteries if a large percentage of the cars were replaced with e-bikes. Not as crazy as it sounds now.

VLM 5y ago

At the consumer level, lower capacity batteries are now generally sold via higher capacity marketing. The world is flooded with 18650 size cells that are marketed at 2500+ mAh but measure 500 mAh. Certainly the higher profit margin on the consumer side must help the other less corrupt sectors.

jacquesm 5y ago
Plenty of them are labelled correctly and deliver as advertised. ~3400 mAh products are readily available from Samsung, Sanyo, Sony and LG. The best way to ensure you get quality product is to buy from a reputed middle-man, unless you plan to buy 100's of thousands of cells, then it will definitely be possible to go direct.
zionic 5y ago
maybe this is true for vape pens, but this is certainly not the case in the home energy storage sector.
- VLM 5y ago
  Yes, that was exactly my point, that selling "2500" cells using "500" parts must be extremely profitable in the consumer sector, possibly in some sense funding the home energy storage sector.

SigmundA 5y ago

It's actually pretty amazing to watch how quickly LiFePO4 batteries are dropping in price over the last few years and how much better they are getting. You can get a 12v 100ah drop in replacement for about the same cost as a high lead acid AGM [1], and there are some really interesting rack mount 48v's at very low price per Wh [2]. These lithium iron batteries are more stable, have extremely long life and avoid cobalt and nickel while having only slightly less energy density. Pretty sure they poised to replace lead acid in almost all applications over the next few years. Tesla is finally replacing the lead acid 12v battery with a lithium 12v and of course they a going LifePO4 for the main pack in some lower end models. I just replaced my worn out high end AGM's in my RV with LiFePO4's, 3 times the price but 4 times the usable capacity in only slightly more space and much less voltage sag throughout the discharge cycle and much faster recharge acceptance and at least 6 times the cycle life, should be the last batteries I need to buy for it. 1. https://www.amazon.com/LiFePO4-Battery-2000-5000-battery-Off-Grid/dp/B08FMTRYPT https://www.amazon.com/LiFePO4-Battery-2000-5000-battery-Off... 2. https://jakiperbattery.com/product/jk48v100/ https://jakiperbattery.com/product/jk48v100/

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tiahura 5y ago
What’s happened with the 12V 100ah over the last year is literally unbelievable. During the pandemic supply crunch these things have gone from $1000 to $400.
zionic 5y ago
the new rack-mount LiFePO4 batteries are insane. I have multiple "server racks" with bus bars. Right now each 5KWH module is ~$1500 with fully integrated BMS and safety systems. If I need more storage I just order another one and slot it in. I could see these modules hitting $500 within 5 years.
- jacquesm 5y ago
  What brand / model did you get?

specialist 5y ago

Good article. TLDR: Wright's Law, Jevon's Paradox, governmental policy. As editor, I would have encouraged author to include three more facets. What is the market size for batteries? Give me a range. From incremental replacement of existing tech to total switchover. Projections into the future. Per Wright's Law, driving down production costs, the marginal costs (?) of batteries will approach material costs. So what is that point and when will it happen? The driver for Wright's Law is investment. What is that shape? Spending $X billions will reduce the price of 1kwh of batteries by $Y dollars. Mostly to train us noob observers and misc other policy makers to think in these terms. So during the food fights over our futureperfect carbon negative economy, tax payers and lobbyists for the captains of industry can say stuff like "Ahem. Yes madam Senator, excellent question. Per our analysis, if the USA govt invests and underwrites 100 megabucks for the next decade, we'll bring to market 100 megawhats (sic), at below current prices and decreasing into the future, employing 100 kilopeeps (sic), resulting in 400 megabucks of tax and licensing revenue back to the USA govt over the next 40 years. Doing so will guarantee our grandchildren's economic security and prosperity. We ask for your support. Thank you."

bryanlarsen 5y ago
> Projections into the future. Per Wright's Law, driving down production costs, the marginal costs (?) of batteries will approach material costs. So what is that point and when will it happen? Batteries are price takers for materials such as iron, but for materials such as lithium, they are price setters. The price of lithium follows the same Wright's law curve as batteries do. Lithium is quite common, so its price decreases as quantities increase due to Wright's law. And batteries consume most of the world's lithium, so the lithium demand follow battery demand.
- specialist 5y ago
  wrt price maker vs price taker, just to verify, batteries are a minor application for iron whereas lithium is the largest application (market). I ask because I hadn't heard that phrase before. (No reply necessary if I guessed correctly. :) )

echopurity 5y ago

Sure, subsidize the next unsustainable pyramid scheme on cars rather than public transit and walkable cities. It's the only way.

boringg 5y ago

Energy storage is following the solar curve in dropping prices from manufacturing - we've seen this for at least 5 years now...nothing new there. The funny thing about it - it isn't clear where the value really accrues. There is continual downward pressure on prices for the full system but there hasn't been particularly good ways to recoup value from the utilities models and bidding as merchant power is super tough to make money. If the hope that electricity prices keep going down from cheap solar (speculating future energy prices is a losers game) it only gets more difficult to install ESS systems. I.e. any system you install now will be out performed by the system in 2 years especially if you are in a bidding market. As someone who builds projects and invests in climate tech companies I find the prices coming down great and open up more opportunity but I just don't know where the value accrues. For example Fluence going public -- they make money on the control & IT side of the system. So any price decrease in the hardware (Siemens) will likely be recouped from Fluence in service costs. TL,DR; Glad the prices are coming down - I'm not entirely sure the narrative is right about where this goes and the gatekeepers (utilities + regulators) haven't fully bought in - ie compensation for the value proposition from ESS hasn't been proved en masse. Federal policies might be the finger on the scale that really continues to keep the growth of ESS + solar/wind going strong. We are going into uncharted waters for grid balancing though and I suspect the utilities will recoup money through system upgrade payments defrayed across the ratebase.

DmitryOlshansky 5y ago

> Cheap and reliable batteries will be essential for decarbonizing multiple industries. I wonder where all of the battery waste goes and if we are truly better off with piles of lithium batteries but reduced carbon footprint. Did I miss some recycling innovation for said batteries?

addicted 5y ago

The article appears to credit Tesla, but Tesla built the gigafactory with Panasonic. And Panasonic had invested, and received massive investment from the likes of Apple for years before. Also, note that the Gigafactory was built in 2014 but prices were dropping well before. The far more likely cause for the decline of batter prices (and why I had predicted they would decline in the early 2010s) was the massive investment by consumer electronics, and particularly smartphone makers, in better and cheaper battery technology. Elon Musk's best move was taking advantage of the investments the smartphone industry was putting into reducing battery costs.

gibolt 5y ago
The scale is completely different. Consumer electronics were step one, but will account for less than 1% of worldwide battery production and drop to negligible quantities. Tesla is pushing us towards Terawatt scale of production.