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The best thing happening right now are the grid scale batteries. They make the companies that build them rich through better arbitration of power prices at the

The best thing happening right now are the grid scale batteries. They make the companies that build them rich through better arbitration of power prices at the same time they vastly lower power prices for everyone. No more peaks of power costing ridiculous amounts (and troughs of negative power prices). You can be anti green for all it matters on this one. The batteries are massively profitable. They are coming on mass everywhere and there’s no stopping them. https://comptroller.texas.gov/economy/fiscal-notes/infrastructure/2024/battery-store/ https://comptroller.texas.gov/economy/fiscal-notes/infrastru...

freddie_mercury 1y ago
My understanding was that the companies aren't getting rich because competition has saturated the market and revenues from energy arbitrage have plummeted in 2025 because everyone needs to discharge during the same limited window. "Vermillion said, adding that most battery operators in Texas earn the bulk of their revenue during a handful of extreme weather days, so “there might be 15 days over the year that matter for capturing revenue.” https://www.ess-news.com/2025/05/15/is-texas-battery-landscape-really-saturated/ https://www.ess-news.com/2025/05/15/is-texas-battery-landsca...
- jl6 1y ago
  There’s still a fortune to be made by whoever can crack seasonal storage. This is the ur-problem of humanity: to pay for the winter using the summer.
  - bestouff 1y ago
    We're getting there. https://www.euronews.com/green/2025/06/15/sand-batteries-could-be-key-breakthrough-in-storing-solar-and-wind-energy-year-round https://www.euronews.com/green/2025/06/15/sand-batteries-cou...
    - ffsm8 1y ago
      That's about storing heat, not electricity. While related insofar some electricity inevitably gets converted back into heating, I don't think its really relevant to this discussion which is explicitly about electricity.
      - ZeroGravitas 1y ago
        The winter peaks in gas and electricity are driven by heating demand. Electrification of heat combines the two and will make winter electricity peaks even peakier. So anything that reduces that heat demand at a lower cost is a relevant fix, this includes heat storage, district heating, general efficiency and insulation improvements etc.
  - ZeroGravitas 1y ago
    In Europe wind power peaks in the winter so with batteries and hydro to smooth out the gaps you can get a combination of solar and wind to match your demand with relative ease. This does depend on location though, Texas wind peaks in Spring apparently. A parallel and necessary step (one that has, suspiciously, suddenly become a culture war for the far right in europe) is electrification of heating with heat pumps, which lets you use your existing gas infrastructure to meet winter generation needs.
    - Paradigma11 1y ago
      The problem is that you still need the infrastructure to sustain through longer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunkelflaute https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunkelflaute . It does not matter if you have to pay the fixed cost of the infrastructure to use it once or ten times a year. If we only need it every few years things will probably get worse since politicians might try to skirt it and hope nothing will go wrong during their tenure. I am not arguing against intermittent energy sources but we need to address these problems.
  - sidewndr46 1y ago
    Since we're talking about Texas, you could just come up with a way to store all the natural gas we flare each year. Which is a huge amount. Or you could just sell it to places that could use it.
  - jmatthews 1y ago
    Even if the round trip efficiency is 25%? Seasonal storage at competitive prices per megawatt hour is somewhat of a solved problem it just doesn't seem to be getting investment.
- SideburnsOfDoom 1y ago
  > the companies aren't getting rich ... revenues from energy arbitrage have plummeted To be fair, there is an upside for such a company no longer being able to extract huge amounts of money from the general public on a regular basis. An upside to the public. Enron was in this business and in this state.
- ZeroGravitas 1y ago
  That specific article is talking about the transition from ancillary services which drove the early battery adoption to actually buying and selling power which was only part of the business case for the initial battery rollouts. The same story is repeating everywhere, batteries will very quickly supply all the ancillary needs for a grid at a fifth of the cost of spinning gas turbines if you let them. The article seems written to intentionally confuse the saturation of that market with the wider abitrage market. The high prices in a few days is likely more to do with Texas using those high prices to incentivize peaker plants rather than contract separately for capacity which some other markets do. They both still pay for it, just as different items on the total grid bill. It would be strange if peaker style plants didn't make most of their money from peak times, whether they get paid via high market prices or capacity payments. And when you enter a new market with batteries, it's shaving the peakiest peaks you've based your business model on. This also saves the most money (and carbon) for utility customers. But all reporting on renewables needs to act like the whole thing is about to collapse into mad max for some reason.
  - sidewndr46 1y ago
    I'm not really sure how you can argue that a battery saves carbon. I'm assuming you mean carbon emissions. If the battery is charged up from a coal plant, then discharged during the day in lieu of a natural gas turbine it's probably measurably worse in all aspects. Carbon into the atmosphere & numerous other emissions from coal is pretty bad. Since we're talking about Texas apparently most coal plants by kw-h are either offline or in some cases even decommissioned. Apparently in 2023 13.2% of generation was sourced from coal.
    - ZeroGravitas 1y ago
      In any well functioning grid that should all be priced in and batteries will be charging during the cheapest and cleanest times and discharging during the dirtiest and most expensive times.
      - sidewndr46 1y ago
benrutter 1y ago
I work for a UK company that manages grid scale batteries - they're awesome! I wonder how they look in a US landscape that's hostile to renewables. Arbitrage works because solar and wind and very cheap and very indeterminate. The more gas, coal and biofuel (all much more expensive but more flexible) in the grid, the less opportunity for arbitrage.
- AnotherGoodName 1y ago
  Yeah in South Australia where it’s over 70% renewables the batteries have been reported to have profit of $46million in a year on a $90million capital cost project. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hornsdale_Power_Reserve https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hornsdale_Power_Reserve No doubt the profits will come down (as long as the free market can do its thing) but for now it’s a crazy market. There’s a reason graphs of battery installations are a hockey stick right now. I will call out one thing for European readers. You’re suspiciously absent on lists of battery build outs. You guys don’t have lots or lobbying from legacy power providers wanting to maintain the ridiculously high peak prices by any chance? As in everywhere in the world except europe has a hockey stick of battery build out growth happening right now. (Not a criticism just an Australian confused at why europe as a whole has fewer battaries than australia).
  - baq 1y ago
    Less renewables in the mix and useless politicians mean they aren’t as needed, or perceived as needed. Spain could use some ASAP, no idea why they haven’t built them.
  - petesergeant 1y ago
    > I will call out one thing for European readers. You’re suspiciously absent on lists of battery build outs If I had to pull reasons out of my ass for this, I'd suggest South Australia and Texas both have a great deal of land with shitty agricultural output (as compared to Europe) and a lot more sunlight. I suspect building batteries is obviously very profitable today in Australia and Texas today, and companies will target Europe when the tech is a bit cheaper and the most profitable markets have been saturated.
SlowTao 1y ago
It was about 15 years back, I remember some reasonably smart but partially anti-renewables folk talking about this. By anti-renewable I would say they were just skeptical with a much higher bar to get over than others. Weren't saying it was impossible but where much more cynically inclined. They argued there would be issues with renewables unless there was a big uptake in storage. That was the key to making it all happen. Well now we have a big uptake in storage and it is starting to look like the future in that sense is very bright. Scale is funny like that, it looks like it won't happen for the longest time and then it suddenly become ubiquitous. There is still a long way to go but improvements are happening fast.
- padjo 1y ago
  We’re still a long way from figuring out storage for renewables. Here in Ireland in winter we get weeks long periods of calm, cold, overcast weather where renewables generate almost nothing. There’s no known energy storage mechanism that can handle this, so we still have to burn fossil fuels. I don’t doubt we’ll figure it out, but I think skeptics still have a valid point on storage.
  - space_firmware 1y ago
    Yeah, it's a struggle. The upshot is most of the cost of combined cycle natural gas peaker plants are the fuel costs, so while storage solutions get figured out, or the renewable get massively overbuilt, you can maintain the FF infra for fairly cheap for the these days.
    - robocat 1y ago
      Incorrect. most of the cost of peaker plants is the capital cost. The fixed costs are high and spread over few hours (peaker) or even no hours at all (just providing ready capacity if required e.g. ready in case of faults with generators or transmission). The variable costs (fuel) are normally quite irrelevant.
      - ZeroGravitas 1y ago

freddie_mercury 1y ago

My understanding was that the companies aren't getting rich because competition has saturated the market and revenues from energy arbitrage have plummeted in 2025 because everyone needs to discharge during the same limited window. "Vermillion said, adding that most battery operators in Texas earn the bulk of their revenue during a handful of extreme weather days, so “there might be 15 days over the year that matter for capturing revenue.” https://www.ess-news.com/2025/05/15/is-texas-battery-landscape-really-saturated/ https://www.ess-news.com/2025/05/15/is-texas-battery-landsca...

jl6 1y ago
There’s still a fortune to be made by whoever can crack seasonal storage. This is the ur-problem of humanity: to pay for the winter using the summer.
- bestouff 1y ago
  We're getting there. https://www.euronews.com/green/2025/06/15/sand-batteries-could-be-key-breakthrough-in-storing-solar-and-wind-energy-year-round https://www.euronews.com/green/2025/06/15/sand-batteries-cou...
  - ffsm8 1y ago
    That's about storing heat, not electricity. While related insofar some electricity inevitably gets converted back into heating, I don't think its really relevant to this discussion which is explicitly about electricity.
    - ZeroGravitas 1y ago
      The winter peaks in gas and electricity are driven by heating demand. Electrification of heat combines the two and will make winter electricity peaks even peakier. So anything that reduces that heat demand at a lower cost is a relevant fix, this includes heat storage, district heating, general efficiency and insulation improvements etc.
- ZeroGravitas 1y ago
  In Europe wind power peaks in the winter so with batteries and hydro to smooth out the gaps you can get a combination of solar and wind to match your demand with relative ease. This does depend on location though, Texas wind peaks in Spring apparently. A parallel and necessary step (one that has, suspiciously, suddenly become a culture war for the far right in europe) is electrification of heating with heat pumps, which lets you use your existing gas infrastructure to meet winter generation needs.
  - Paradigma11 1y ago
    The problem is that you still need the infrastructure to sustain through longer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunkelflaute https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunkelflaute . It does not matter if you have to pay the fixed cost of the infrastructure to use it once or ten times a year. If we only need it every few years things will probably get worse since politicians might try to skirt it and hope nothing will go wrong during their tenure. I am not arguing against intermittent energy sources but we need to address these problems.
- sidewndr46 1y ago
  Since we're talking about Texas, you could just come up with a way to store all the natural gas we flare each year. Which is a huge amount. Or you could just sell it to places that could use it.
- jmatthews 1y ago
  Even if the round trip efficiency is 25%? Seasonal storage at competitive prices per megawatt hour is somewhat of a solved problem it just doesn't seem to be getting investment.
SideburnsOfDoom 1y ago
> the companies aren't getting rich ... revenues from energy arbitrage have plummeted To be fair, there is an upside for such a company no longer being able to extract huge amounts of money from the general public on a regular basis. An upside to the public. Enron was in this business and in this state.
ZeroGravitas 1y ago
That specific article is talking about the transition from ancillary services which drove the early battery adoption to actually buying and selling power which was only part of the business case for the initial battery rollouts. The same story is repeating everywhere, batteries will very quickly supply all the ancillary needs for a grid at a fifth of the cost of spinning gas turbines if you let them. The article seems written to intentionally confuse the saturation of that market with the wider abitrage market. The high prices in a few days is likely more to do with Texas using those high prices to incentivize peaker plants rather than contract separately for capacity which some other markets do. They both still pay for it, just as different items on the total grid bill. It would be strange if peaker style plants didn't make most of their money from peak times, whether they get paid via high market prices or capacity payments. And when you enter a new market with batteries, it's shaving the peakiest peaks you've based your business model on. This also saves the most money (and carbon) for utility customers. But all reporting on renewables needs to act like the whole thing is about to collapse into mad max for some reason.
- sidewndr46 1y ago
  I'm not really sure how you can argue that a battery saves carbon. I'm assuming you mean carbon emissions. If the battery is charged up from a coal plant, then discharged during the day in lieu of a natural gas turbine it's probably measurably worse in all aspects. Carbon into the atmosphere & numerous other emissions from coal is pretty bad. Since we're talking about Texas apparently most coal plants by kw-h are either offline or in some cases even decommissioned. Apparently in 2023 13.2% of generation was sourced from coal.
  - ZeroGravitas 1y ago
    In any well functioning grid that should all be priced in and batteries will be charging during the cheapest and cleanest times and discharging during the dirtiest and most expensive times.
    - sidewndr46 1y ago

benrutter 1y ago

I work for a UK company that manages grid scale batteries - they're awesome! I wonder how they look in a US landscape that's hostile to renewables. Arbitrage works because solar and wind and very cheap and very indeterminate. The more gas, coal and biofuel (all much more expensive but more flexible) in the grid, the less opportunity for arbitrage.

AnotherGoodName 1y ago
Yeah in South Australia where it’s over 70% renewables the batteries have been reported to have profit of $46million in a year on a $90million capital cost project. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hornsdale_Power_Reserve https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hornsdale_Power_Reserve No doubt the profits will come down (as long as the free market can do its thing) but for now it’s a crazy market. There’s a reason graphs of battery installations are a hockey stick right now. I will call out one thing for European readers. You’re suspiciously absent on lists of battery build outs. You guys don’t have lots or lobbying from legacy power providers wanting to maintain the ridiculously high peak prices by any chance? As in everywhere in the world except europe has a hockey stick of battery build out growth happening right now. (Not a criticism just an Australian confused at why europe as a whole has fewer battaries than australia).
- baq 1y ago
  Less renewables in the mix and useless politicians mean they aren’t as needed, or perceived as needed. Spain could use some ASAP, no idea why they haven’t built them.
- petesergeant 1y ago
  > I will call out one thing for European readers. You’re suspiciously absent on lists of battery build outs If I had to pull reasons out of my ass for this, I'd suggest South Australia and Texas both have a great deal of land with shitty agricultural output (as compared to Europe) and a lot more sunlight. I suspect building batteries is obviously very profitable today in Australia and Texas today, and companies will target Europe when the tech is a bit cheaper and the most profitable markets have been saturated.

SlowTao 1y ago

It was about 15 years back, I remember some reasonably smart but partially anti-renewables folk talking about this. By anti-renewable I would say they were just skeptical with a much higher bar to get over than others. Weren't saying it was impossible but where much more cynically inclined. They argued there would be issues with renewables unless there was a big uptake in storage. That was the key to making it all happen. Well now we have a big uptake in storage and it is starting to look like the future in that sense is very bright. Scale is funny like that, it looks like it won't happen for the longest time and then it suddenly become ubiquitous. There is still a long way to go but improvements are happening fast.

padjo 1y ago
We’re still a long way from figuring out storage for renewables. Here in Ireland in winter we get weeks long periods of calm, cold, overcast weather where renewables generate almost nothing. There’s no known energy storage mechanism that can handle this, so we still have to burn fossil fuels. I don’t doubt we’ll figure it out, but I think skeptics still have a valid point on storage.
- space_firmware 1y ago
  Yeah, it's a struggle. The upshot is most of the cost of combined cycle natural gas peaker plants are the fuel costs, so while storage solutions get figured out, or the renewable get massively overbuilt, you can maintain the FF infra for fairly cheap for the these days.
  - robocat 1y ago
    Incorrect. most of the cost of peaker plants is the capital cost. The fixed costs are high and spread over few hours (peaker) or even no hours at all (just providing ready capacity if required e.g. ready in case of faults with generators or transmission). The variable costs (fuel) are normally quite irrelevant.
    - ZeroGravitas 1y ago