27 Comments

Did you make a mistake in your calculation?

Growth from 2410 GWh to 61917 GWh is ~4.7 doublings, not 8:

log (61917/2410) / log 2 = 4.7

That would result in ~$20/kWh:

80 * (0.75^4.7) = 20.7

Did I misunderstand your calculation? It is getting late. If I don't post this now, I never will, I guess.

Referring to:

"If we start with 2410 GWh in 2023 and grow with 59% per year that gives us 61.917 GWh in 2030. That would mean almost exactly 8 doublings in 2030. Each time the price would be reduced by 25%. If we started with $80/kWh in 2023 and subtracted 25% eight times in a row, the end result would be battery cells costing just $8 per kWh."

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I think he just misplaced the decimal, meant to put 619,000 GWh ~(2^8 * 2400). However, I don't know how he gets 8 doublings in 7 or 8 years when each year is 60% growth according to him ... that's 1.6^7 or 1.6^8, not 2^8. This all reads like nonsense to me.

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7 doublings from 2410 GWh at 59% a year comes to ~61 TWh. However, a doubling takes about 63 weeks and 7 doublings would be 441 weeks which would put us at roughly June 2032, not 2030.

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>> However, a doubling takes about 63 weeks

Not if the 60% rate he quoted is correct. Either you are pulling that 63-week figure from somewhere else, or you got your math wrong.

You don't even need to do any math to figure out that if you gain 60% over 52 weeks, you will need more than 11 additional weeks to gain 25% (the 25% of the 1.6x after 52 weeks being the additional amount required to get to 2x).

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The math is correct because it's compounded growth. The compounding actually happens daily in practice as more production comes online which can happen at any time. For compound growth you have to use the rule of 72. Look it up.

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This article is truly enlightening! 🔋

Excited to see such promising developments, especially for those of us who have been innovating in this space.

We’ve been working on a project that perfectly aligns with this trend, focusing on Na-Ion batteries and enhancing their durability without sacrificing cost-effectiveness. ⚡

This synergy between cutting-edge research and practical solutions is paving the way for a more sustainable and economically viable energy future. 🌍

(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=If1y4ExSTQc)

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I'm bemused by extrapolation applied to physics.

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Would agree that a shift will happen when battery prices fall further, only a small increase in storage would make a big difference to the grid services that storage could provide. Enterprise level OSS to manage it all and herd those cats: https://solarnetwork.net

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So we can install 14 TWh of batteries (10 billion euro that our government reserved for 4 new nuclear power plants)

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Build the nukes. Grid Storage needs to be funded in parallel. Disappointed to see residential consumers assumed to take on the cost and initiative to purchase and install home systems to make up for failing infrastructure. If a residential consumer needs battery Storage to combat peak pricing and poor grid stability, the infrastructure is the problem.

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Hi Auke, question: Do you think batteries can also be the solution for seasonal storage? Here in Switzerland we have a gap of about 7TWh of electricity demand in winter. Could battteries help store from sunny to gloomy days?

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Hang on , all that graph shows is that in successful products as prices drop , sales increase and as volume increase production costs decrease. Your inverting that fact is a good article strategy though.

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Like EVs , the answer to that will determine their adoption as with Solar PV

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There is no way this trend can be sustained for another 8 years. An additional 60 TWh of batteries produced in the next 8 years is just not possible. If we produce 500 GWh this year, at 59% a year growth we would have to produce 13.5 TWh in 2031. I can see 5-7 TWh maybe. But not 13.5 TWh especially not at 300 wh/kg, not to mention 200 wh,/kg.

If gravimetric energy density grew to 500 wh/kg it would require far less cells to be produced to get to 5-7 TWh.

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You have a wonderful insight into the technological aspects of battery development and usage. I too, have been following this closely as I would like to see electric aircraft replace the gas guzzling ICE powered ones I have flown. What you point out regarding the past and how that extrapolates to a future of low-cost batteries is probably spot on, but only from a purely manufacturing standpoint. Historically the benefits of advancements like this are corralled by the rich and are never seen by society at large. Many examples exist. Even though sodium is quite low in relative cost, there is a significant infrastructure required to use it and that can only be obtained with large capital investments, essentially only available to the rich. The rich will once again find a key part of this that can be controlled and extort profits from the general population. The problems in society are not technological, they are due to greed, and power, and control. The solutions therefore will not be acquired without addressing the real root causes.

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Hi Auke, Good article, echoes my own thoughts about DER and how we decompose the supply demand problem into local solvable equations say at a street, suburb or regional level. Also the OSI model is a great example of prior art as it were. Perfectly applicable. The distribution of power is the distribution of power. thanks Shaun

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What capacity will we need in NL to have a stable system in 2030, 2040 and 2050?

At 125TWh/j today and up to 625TWh/j in 2050 (NPE2050) we have some capacity to build. But how much?

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The trend in batteries (and as you say, the outstanding paper by Rupert Way and his team) is clear. I am still struggling to understand how / whether this will deal with seasonal requirements in your opinion. I agree, it will deal with the potential risk of a chaotic system in the situation where you are at 80-90%+ intermittent renewables, but do you really see it solving the longer-term (non-diurnal) requirements?

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First principles ... start at the top right corner, current batteries (energy storage) are very disappointing.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_density#/media/File:Energy_density.svg

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the linked graph does not show very relevant information. For local use neither gravimetric nor volumetric energy density are that important. Price per kWh is the most relevant factor for the mentioned use cases like energy storage for compensation of fluctuating PV and Wind generation

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My understanding of Wrights Law is that prices are expected to drop at a fixed percentage relative to cumulative production. Not due to annual production. Which is why the price of petrol engines would take such a long time from here to decline because a single doubling of the total historical cumulative production would now take a very long time.

Sodium batteries look promising. But lithium sulphur batteries will also likely be great. They still have lithium, but they offer the prospect of a lot my energy storage per unit of lithium.

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Regarding the source of the data (IEA report), it seems like the graph should rather be titled "battery volume in use in GWh". This is also not the cumulative production, but maybe closer to it?

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Man this is pure fantasy, did the author take into account the quantity of raw material needed if double production every year?

Batteries are not made of dollars.

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