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There's going to be a bloodbath in that market in the next years. There are a lot of battery producers and most of them are not producing at full capacity. At t

There's going to be a bloodbath in that market in the next years. There are a lot of battery producers and most of them are not producing at full capacity. At the same time, manufacturing cost is dropping as well. Some battery makers are producing batteries at a cost level of around 60$ per kwh. At that cost, the 16kwh battery would come out below 1000$ (not the same obviously as the product price). Sodium ion might push those prices even lower. Below 50$ soonish and eventually closer to the 10-20$ range in maybe 5-10 years. At that point we're talking a few hundred dollars for a decent size domestic battery. You still need packaging, inverters, etc. of course. But the ROI at anything close to those price levels is going to be pretty rapid. And it wouldn't break the bank for households across the world. Add a few kw of solar on roofs, balconies, etc. It won't solve everyone's problems and certainly not in every season. But it can help reduce energy bills in a meaningful enough way. Even in winter. Also worth pointing out: most of the US is south of Cornwall. The Canadian border runs roughly at 49 degrees latitude. Cornwall is the most southern point in the UK sits at 50 degrees. If it can work there, most of the US has no excuse. Also, the UK isn't exactly well known for their clear blue skies. Even people in Scotland much further north manage to get positive ROIs out of their solar setups.

itsamario 10mo ago
Companies like Schneider electric have systems for 25-50% the hyped brands but they don't provide batteries. This is the company that owns APC so its not like theyre new or untested. They just don't bother with brand awareness
- nagisa 10mo ago
  Its weird to read about Schneider Electric not bothering with brand awareness. They aren't a household brand, sure, but they are well up there with Siemens and the like in industrial/b2b sector and their marketing budget is allocated accordingly.
  - MisterTea 10mo ago
    All they did was buy up everyone's else brand and put their brand over it. Modicon PLC's, Magnecraft relays, etc.
raddan 10mo ago
I installed a 16.5kWp ground-mount array a month ago. I live in the US Northeast, in a mountainous location that means we get late sunrises and early sunsets. Nevertheless, based on my one month of data, it looks like we can generate all the power we need for our household on a sunny winter day, excluding electric vehicles. Even on overcast days, we can sometimes offset a significant portion of our usage. My locale does not have time-of-use rates, so there’s no point trying to do arbitrage for electricity prices. So right now I just have our battery configured for backup. My hope is that during the summer months I can reconfigure the system to use the battery to reduce grid reliance instead. The expiring tax credits were what forced my hand. I’m the kind of person who likes to install things himself, and I probably would have gone that route for solar too, because the materials costs (sans battery) aren’t even half of the total cost.
- torginus 10mo ago
  Here in Europe, we got more than a month's worth of foggy, cloudy weather (something that looks like will keep being a thing), which is something I became painfully aware of as an owner of a solar setup. No amount of battery banks can tide over such a long stretch. By the way, let me ask you - considering your location, you must be getting a lot of snow, how do you deal with it, is it a problem? Panels are quite hard to reach on the roof.
  - yomismoaqui 10mo ago
    Where in Europe? Between Spain and Denmark there is a lot of variance in temperature, sun and rain... Talking about the weather "in Europe" is like talking about the shoe size a family of 10 wears.
  - raddan 10mo ago
    I do indeed get a lot of snow. In January and February it snows roughly once every two days, although usually in small amounts. Fortunately I have a ground mount. The bottom row is roughly at waist height. I can (and have been) sweeping the panels off with a large push broom. Because my array is so large, I can only reach the bottom half of the array. But this usually is enough. When the panel starts to generate power, it also tends to heat up; the snow on the top half then often slides off on its own. I might invest in a longer broom. It is not uncommon for people here to own “snow rakes” to remove large snow loads from their roofs. These usually have a rubberized “rake” with a very long aluminum handle. Or the novelty of this might wear off and I’ll just let the panel do its own thing. It is pitched rather steeply (close to 45°) and based on my observations of my neighbors, panels tend to shed the snow on their own eventually.
Aurornis 10mo ago
I'm not so sure. There are a lot of large-scale applications that would gobble up battery supply if it hit a certain price point. Grid-scale storage and datacenters, for example. If prices for residential gear falls too much, I expect the manufacturers would just stop making it and focus on the commercial options instead.
- cogman10 10mo ago
  IMO, there's close to no bad usecase for batteries. In almost all their applications, they end up spreading out power consumption favoring cheap energy for expensive energy. If a datacenter installs a solar array + a giant battery pack for their power, that's much better than them heavily relying on a natural gas plant to generate power when the lights are out.
- floatrock 10mo ago
  Why does it have to be zero-sum? Why not commercial demand creates the economies of scale that bring the residential stuff down in price with them?
- jillesvangurp 10mo ago
  The commercial options would fall further in price probably than consumer prices. If you buy in bulk, you do research to find the most cost effective options. That's a common pattern with many things. I don't see why batteries would be any different. If anything, I'd expect consumer batteries to have higher margins. Tesla batteries are a good example probably. At those prices, a Tesla car would be unobtanium. Obviously they charge a lot less for batteries that go in a car. The reality is that many battery factories might be operating at 40-50% capacity only. Exact figures are hard to come by but there are lots of warnings about over production, surpluses, etc.. That spells a lot of trouble for some of the newer battery producers promising more efficient batteries. Because unless they price match, they price themselves out of the market almost immediately.
greycol 10mo ago
One thing to remember is as it becomes more widespread line costs will go up (assuming they are subsidized by kwh use, which they generally are) and no-sun power prices will increase as it's the only time when the grid needs power from non solar producers and they still need to cover cost incurred while they're not producing. That will push the economics towards completely off grid systems as more people adopt solar, so if people are planning it for themselves they should probably consider that it will make sense to expand their set up in the future and that there might be a price crunch due to higher demand because of larger systems coupled with more people wanting to switch.
- port11 10mo ago
  My partner works in the field and we once talked about this. I think the idea is that individual consumers’ and businesses’ batteries can serve the grid as needed. For example, if your car is fully charged and you don’t need it today, it can top up local needs. So I think the writing isn’t on the wall yet for line price going up, although I’m of course talking of a) Belgium, and b) a future that could go wrong if utilities don’t fund smart metering.
  - nonfamous 10mo ago
    That’s how it works for us here in Australia. We have 16Wh of solar and 40KWh of battery, and pay (and receive) wholesale rates for electricity. During the say electricity prices are very low or negative, and we run off the solar and charge the car then. In the evenings when demand is high electricity prices can spike, and our system will automatically sell to the grid then. Sometimes we may need to draw from the grid in the early morning to make up for that, but the price we pay then is insignificant compared to what we make selling the day before.
    - port11 10mo ago
      That sounds quite good, but you have a massive installation. Did it pay for itself by now?
- ViewTrick1002 10mo ago
torginus 10mo ago
Majority of the world's battery manufacturing capacity is dominated by just a small handful of players: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_electric_vehicle_battery_manufacturers https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_electric_vehicle_batte... Just 11 companies control 90+% of manufacturing capacity, I think they might need to adjust their ambitions in the face of demand, but I think most of them are too big to fail.
QuiEgo 10mo ago
I suspect the traditional grid operators will fight this very very hard.

itsamario 10mo ago

Companies like Schneider electric have systems for 25-50% the hyped brands but they don't provide batteries. This is the company that owns APC so its not like theyre new or untested. They just don't bother with brand awareness

nagisa 10mo ago
Its weird to read about Schneider Electric not bothering with brand awareness. They aren't a household brand, sure, but they are well up there with Siemens and the like in industrial/b2b sector and their marketing budget is allocated accordingly.
- MisterTea 10mo ago
  All they did was buy up everyone's else brand and put their brand over it. Modicon PLC's, Magnecraft relays, etc.

raddan 10mo ago

I installed a 16.5kWp ground-mount array a month ago. I live in the US Northeast, in a mountainous location that means we get late sunrises and early sunsets. Nevertheless, based on my one month of data, it looks like we can generate all the power we need for our household on a sunny winter day, excluding electric vehicles. Even on overcast days, we can sometimes offset a significant portion of our usage. My locale does not have time-of-use rates, so there’s no point trying to do arbitrage for electricity prices. So right now I just have our battery configured for backup. My hope is that during the summer months I can reconfigure the system to use the battery to reduce grid reliance instead. The expiring tax credits were what forced my hand. I’m the kind of person who likes to install things himself, and I probably would have gone that route for solar too, because the materials costs (sans battery) aren’t even half of the total cost.

torginus 10mo ago
Here in Europe, we got more than a month's worth of foggy, cloudy weather (something that looks like will keep being a thing), which is something I became painfully aware of as an owner of a solar setup. No amount of battery banks can tide over such a long stretch. By the way, let me ask you - considering your location, you must be getting a lot of snow, how do you deal with it, is it a problem? Panels are quite hard to reach on the roof.
- yomismoaqui 10mo ago
  Where in Europe? Between Spain and Denmark there is a lot of variance in temperature, sun and rain... Talking about the weather "in Europe" is like talking about the shoe size a family of 10 wears.
- raddan 10mo ago
  I do indeed get a lot of snow. In January and February it snows roughly once every two days, although usually in small amounts. Fortunately I have a ground mount. The bottom row is roughly at waist height. I can (and have been) sweeping the panels off with a large push broom. Because my array is so large, I can only reach the bottom half of the array. But this usually is enough. When the panel starts to generate power, it also tends to heat up; the snow on the top half then often slides off on its own. I might invest in a longer broom. It is not uncommon for people here to own “snow rakes” to remove large snow loads from their roofs. These usually have a rubberized “rake” with a very long aluminum handle. Or the novelty of this might wear off and I’ll just let the panel do its own thing. It is pitched rather steeply (close to 45°) and based on my observations of my neighbors, panels tend to shed the snow on their own eventually.

Aurornis 10mo ago

I'm not so sure. There are a lot of large-scale applications that would gobble up battery supply if it hit a certain price point. Grid-scale storage and datacenters, for example. If prices for residential gear falls too much, I expect the manufacturers would just stop making it and focus on the commercial options instead.

cogman10 10mo ago
IMO, there's close to no bad usecase for batteries. In almost all their applications, they end up spreading out power consumption favoring cheap energy for expensive energy. If a datacenter installs a solar array + a giant battery pack for their power, that's much better than them heavily relying on a natural gas plant to generate power when the lights are out.
floatrock 10mo ago
Why does it have to be zero-sum? Why not commercial demand creates the economies of scale that bring the residential stuff down in price with them?
jillesvangurp 10mo ago
The commercial options would fall further in price probably than consumer prices. If you buy in bulk, you do research to find the most cost effective options. That's a common pattern with many things. I don't see why batteries would be any different. If anything, I'd expect consumer batteries to have higher margins. Tesla batteries are a good example probably. At those prices, a Tesla car would be unobtanium. Obviously they charge a lot less for batteries that go in a car. The reality is that many battery factories might be operating at 40-50% capacity only. Exact figures are hard to come by but there are lots of warnings about over production, surpluses, etc.. That spells a lot of trouble for some of the newer battery producers promising more efficient batteries. Because unless they price match, they price themselves out of the market almost immediately.

greycol 10mo ago

One thing to remember is as it becomes more widespread line costs will go up (assuming they are subsidized by kwh use, which they generally are) and no-sun power prices will increase as it's the only time when the grid needs power from non solar producers and they still need to cover cost incurred while they're not producing. That will push the economics towards completely off grid systems as more people adopt solar, so if people are planning it for themselves they should probably consider that it will make sense to expand their set up in the future and that there might be a price crunch due to higher demand because of larger systems coupled with more people wanting to switch.

port11 10mo ago
My partner works in the field and we once talked about this. I think the idea is that individual consumers’ and businesses’ batteries can serve the grid as needed. For example, if your car is fully charged and you don’t need it today, it can top up local needs. So I think the writing isn’t on the wall yet for line price going up, although I’m of course talking of a) Belgium, and b) a future that could go wrong if utilities don’t fund smart metering.
- nonfamous 10mo ago
  That’s how it works for us here in Australia. We have 16Wh of solar and 40KWh of battery, and pay (and receive) wholesale rates for electricity. During the say electricity prices are very low or negative, and we run off the solar and charge the car then. In the evenings when demand is high electricity prices can spike, and our system will automatically sell to the grid then. Sometimes we may need to draw from the grid in the early morning to make up for that, but the price we pay then is insignificant compared to what we make selling the day before.
  - port11 10mo ago
    That sounds quite good, but you have a massive installation. Did it pay for itself by now?
ViewTrick1002 10mo ago

torginus 10mo ago

Majority of the world's battery manufacturing capacity is dominated by just a small handful of players: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_electric_vehicle_battery_manufacturers https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_electric_vehicle_batte... Just 11 companies control 90+% of manufacturing capacity, I think they might need to adjust their ambitions in the face of demand, but I think most of them are too big to fail.

QuiEgo 10mo ago

I suspect the traditional grid operators will fight this very very hard.