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The most interesting thing is the low levelized cost of storage offered by this new unit: At the heart of HaoHan is BYD’s self-developed 2,710 Ah Blade Battery

The most interesting thing is the low levelized cost of storage offered by this new unit: At the heart of HaoHan is BYD’s self-developed 2,710 Ah Blade Battery cell, which the company claims is the largest energy storage cell in the world. This next-generation cell delivers three times the capacity of conventional storage batteries, boasts a cycle life of over 10,000 cycles, and reduces the total lifecycle cost per kilowatt-hour to below CNY 0.1 ($0.014) – a milestone that could reshape the economics of large-scale storage. At 1.4 cents per kilowatt hour to store, that actually puts storage cost below generation cost for solar power. In sunny regions solar without storage has been cheaper than fossil generation for a few years now, but with batteries like these it's going to be cheaper than fossils for overnight usage too. The other exciting thing is that while this is a Chinese product, we can expect similar cost drops outside of China over time. Today's non-Chinese solar cells are about where Chinese solar cell prices were 5-9 years ago. China gets the low prices first, but global manufacturing costs keep dropping too because the lower costs are driven more by technological improvements than by China-specific factors like inexpensive labor or lax environmental standards.

toomuchtodo 1y ago
These prices keep falling faster than the graphs can get updated, which is quite humorous imho. https://ourworldindata.org/battery-price-decline https://ourworldindata.org/battery-price-decline https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/average-battery-cell-price https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/average-battery-cell-pric... https://rmi.org/the-rise-of-batteries-in-six-charts-and-not-too-many-numbers/ https://rmi.org/the-rise-of-batteries-in-six-charts-and-not-... https://docs.nrel.gov/docs/fy25osti/93281.pdf https://docs.nrel.gov/docs/fy25osti/93281.pdf https://about.bnef.com/insights/commodities/lithium-ion-battery-pack-prices-see-largest-drop-since-2017-falling-to-115-per-kilowatt-hour-bloombergnef/ https://about.bnef.com/insights/commodities/lithium-ion-batt...
- actionfromafar 1y ago
  Ah, but you see, battery storage is ackshully impossible, we must have nukular, clean, beautiful coal instead of golf course destroying wind mills and solar.
  - karmakurtisaani 1y ago
    I see you've visited an energy discussion thread on HN before.
    - actionfromafar 1y ago
      Thought I'd save three commenters the trouble. Although now we are kind of spoiling that.
  - deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
  - ohdeargodno 1y ago
    [dead]
  - tim333 1y ago
    But nuclear is cheap and easy! Look at our Hinkley C, announced 2010, maybe operational 2030 and only £45bn! How are batteries going to compete?
    - actionfromafar 1y ago
      I wonder what 45bn of batteries would get us. I imagine a lot of batteries.
torginus 1y ago
Using the 3.7V nominal voltage for a lithium cell, that puts the Blade Battery at 10kWh - I think the price provided is for over the entire life of the battery which works out to 10000x10kWh*$0.014/10kWh, which is $140 per kWh. Not expensive, but not particularly remarkable considering modern pack prices.
- onraglanroad 1y ago
  That calculation doesn't make any sense. I mean you both multiply and divide by 10kWh, so those cancel out and you end up with just $ (not "per" anything). What's that supposed to be the price of? I guess if you have 10,000 cycles and one kWh costs $0.014, then that's just the cost of 10,000 kWh.
  - torginus 1y ago
    I calculated the cost of the pack from the data at $140 for 1kWh. I guess I shouldn't have included the kWh in the divisor but (10000x3.7V2710Ah$0.014) <- total cost of the pack / 10 <- normalize to 1kWh = $140
    - mchusma 1y ago
      This makes more sense than battery costs dropping 99%. I was confused by op, and wish it were true. It’s more like 10x solar than 1/10th solar.
- abdullahkhalids 1y ago
  Another grid-scale Chinese battery got bids for ~US$66 last year [1]. So this is twice as expected but maybe the other battery won't have as many cycles. [1] https://reneweconomy.com.au/mind-blowing-battery-cell-prices-plunge-in-chinas-biggest-energy-storage-auction/ https://reneweconomy.com.au/mind-blowing-battery-cell-prices...
  - toomuchtodo 1y ago
    A recent (July 2025) winning bid was $US51.59/kWh. https://reneweconomy.com.au/watershed-moment-big-battery-storage-prices-hit-record-low-in-huge-china-auction/ https://reneweconomy.com.au/watershed-moment-big-battery-sto... > The latest auction in China offered 25 gigawatt hours of capacity for lithium iron phosphate (LFP) batteries over a range of storage periods – 1 hour, 2 hour and 4 hours – and the results (the first time they have been broken down on storage duration) have stunned even seasoned onlookers. The knockout price was a bid of $US51.59/kWh for a four hour battery (the average was $US59/kWh), which Energy Storage News says represents a 30 per cent drop from 2024 levels, and others side was a 15 per cent fall from recent record lows. It would be exciting if the price continues to decline 15-30 percent per year. Unsure if that’s sustainable at current manufacturing and learning rates, but exciting.
whitehexagon 1y ago
>but with batteries like these it's going to be cheaper than fossils for overnight usage too. 1200eur bought me a reasonable LiPo solar 'buffer battery' for evenings, and ROI is maybe 3 years vs buying fosil fuel electrons at peak tarif. Plus savings from being able to drop the fixed ~70% of my bill grid connection charge. Anyway, exciting to see that I might soon be able to afford enough storage for cloudy days too. Thanks for the extra details, sounds too good to be true.
tim333 1y ago
That's cool. As a consumer I'm paying ~30 cents per kWh so there would seem to be a lot of room for that sort of thing to reduce prices. I'm in the UK where prices just seem to go up regardless of tech but maybe there's hope.

toomuchtodo 1y ago

These prices keep falling faster than the graphs can get updated, which is quite humorous imho. https://ourworldindata.org/battery-price-decline https://ourworldindata.org/battery-price-decline https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/average-battery-cell-price https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/average-battery-cell-pric... https://rmi.org/the-rise-of-batteries-in-six-charts-and-not-too-many-numbers/ https://rmi.org/the-rise-of-batteries-in-six-charts-and-not-... https://docs.nrel.gov/docs/fy25osti/93281.pdf https://docs.nrel.gov/docs/fy25osti/93281.pdf https://about.bnef.com/insights/commodities/lithium-ion-battery-pack-prices-see-largest-drop-since-2017-falling-to-115-per-kilowatt-hour-bloombergnef/ https://about.bnef.com/insights/commodities/lithium-ion-batt...

actionfromafar 1y ago
Ah, but you see, battery storage is ackshully impossible, we must have nukular, clean, beautiful coal instead of golf course destroying wind mills and solar.
- karmakurtisaani 1y ago
  I see you've visited an energy discussion thread on HN before.
  - actionfromafar 1y ago
    Thought I'd save three commenters the trouble. Although now we are kind of spoiling that.
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
- ohdeargodno 1y ago
  [dead]
- tim333 1y ago
  But nuclear is cheap and easy! Look at our Hinkley C, announced 2010, maybe operational 2030 and only £45bn! How are batteries going to compete?
  - actionfromafar 1y ago
    I wonder what 45bn of batteries would get us. I imagine a lot of batteries.

torginus 1y ago

Using the 3.7V nominal voltage for a lithium cell, that puts the Blade Battery at 10kWh - I think the price provided is for over the entire life of the battery which works out to 10000x10kWh*$0.014/10kWh, which is $140 per kWh. Not expensive, but not particularly remarkable considering modern pack prices.

onraglanroad 1y ago
That calculation doesn't make any sense. I mean you both multiply and divide by 10kWh, so those cancel out and you end up with just $ (not "per" anything). What's that supposed to be the price of? I guess if you have 10,000 cycles and one kWh costs $0.014, then that's just the cost of 10,000 kWh.
- torginus 1y ago
  I calculated the cost of the pack from the data at $140 for 1kWh. I guess I shouldn't have included the kWh in the divisor but (10000x3.7V2710Ah$0.014) <- total cost of the pack / 10 <- normalize to 1kWh = $140
  - mchusma 1y ago
    This makes more sense than battery costs dropping 99%. I was confused by op, and wish it were true. It’s more like 10x solar than 1/10th solar.
abdullahkhalids 1y ago
Another grid-scale Chinese battery got bids for ~US$66 last year [1]. So this is twice as expected but maybe the other battery won't have as many cycles. [1] https://reneweconomy.com.au/mind-blowing-battery-cell-prices-plunge-in-chinas-biggest-energy-storage-auction/ https://reneweconomy.com.au/mind-blowing-battery-cell-prices...
- toomuchtodo 1y ago
  A recent (July 2025) winning bid was $US51.59/kWh. https://reneweconomy.com.au/watershed-moment-big-battery-storage-prices-hit-record-low-in-huge-china-auction/ https://reneweconomy.com.au/watershed-moment-big-battery-sto... > The latest auction in China offered 25 gigawatt hours of capacity for lithium iron phosphate (LFP) batteries over a range of storage periods – 1 hour, 2 hour and 4 hours – and the results (the first time they have been broken down on storage duration) have stunned even seasoned onlookers. The knockout price was a bid of $US51.59/kWh for a four hour battery (the average was $US59/kWh), which Energy Storage News says represents a 30 per cent drop from 2024 levels, and others side was a 15 per cent fall from recent record lows. It would be exciting if the price continues to decline 15-30 percent per year. Unsure if that’s sustainable at current manufacturing and learning rates, but exciting.

whitehexagon 1y ago

>but with batteries like these it's going to be cheaper than fossils for overnight usage too. 1200eur bought me a reasonable LiPo solar 'buffer battery' for evenings, and ROI is maybe 3 years vs buying fosil fuel electrons at peak tarif. Plus savings from being able to drop the fixed ~70% of my bill grid connection charge. Anyway, exciting to see that I might soon be able to afford enough storage for cloudy days too. Thanks for the extra details, sounds too good to be true.

tim333 1y ago

That's cool. As a consumer I'm paying ~30 cents per kWh so there would seem to be a lot of room for that sort of thing to reduce prices. I'm in the UK where prices just seem to go up regardless of tech but maybe there's hope.