How dirt cheap batteries will completely transform our electricity grid, paving the way for solar and wind and replacing grid reinforcements with grid buffers.
20 kWh? How about 100kWh of storage? At $20/kWh that's just $2000. An even bigger battery would not only "smooth out the curve" but turn the utility into a backup power source for the rare times the sun and the batteries cannot supply your need. Net-metering permit queue backup? No problem. Batteries mean we don't need to sell back to the utility, just avoid buying whenever possible. With solar buy back rates sliding downward, we don't need to worry. Savings from not buying utility supplied grid electrons can exceed net metering income. All we need are inexpensive batteries. Bring 'em on.
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. 🌍
This is a heap of shit. Green Washing Koombaya garbage.
The Emirates has recently commenced construction on a $6 billion solar project, combining a 5.2 GW solar plant with a 19 GWh battery storage. The system aims to provide one gigawatt of continuous, “renewable” energy on a 24/7 basis. But why does one need to store so much electricity in one of the sunniest regions of the world to do that? And what does this tells us about the rest of the planet trying to switch to wind and solar? There is a lot to unpack here and plenty of lessons to be learned, including one on how solar could still help us on our long way down the Hubbert-curve… Because, like it or not, when the Gulf Arabs start spending billions on solar panels, you can be sure that the slippery downslope of world oil production is clearly in sight.
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."
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.
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.
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).
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.
Very interesting. I am also persuaded that the transformation of our energy systems will occur in a bottom-up fashion, where nations, companies and individuals can have their own energy production and storage; thereby becoming more energy independent. Nobody wants to be subject to volatile fossil fuel prices any more. Cheaper prices will drive the transition, but resilience will be the nail in the coffin of fossil fuels.
I think many are missing the boat: as prices drop, batteries WILL become a ubiquitous homeowner asset, subject to economics and Wright's Law (and Moore's Law). There are also many chemistries in the pipeline (sodium, solid state, sulfur, aluminum), and many alternatives being developed. Battery is not synonymous with NMC or LFP. That's a current tech. We shouldn't get caught up with supply chain caveats, as there will also be recycling/recovery (we are currently able to recover 98%).
Battery cost WILL come down, and stationary home batteries supplant the need for smart-everything. they also are not requiring the same space efficiency (energy density) of EV battery packs, although the EV manufacturers are the logical source for home cells. Storage at the location of renewable generation changes EVERYTHING. Solar + storage will be a great appliance for power generation, to add to refrigeration (for food) and heat pumps (for heat and hot water) and stoves (for cooking). It also reduces the need to upgrade the grid, as most electrical flow is local, and reduces the input side of the Sankey chart, since there would be no fuel and virtually no line loss.
Changing to a model where there are DERs with storage makes the homeowner a producer and reduces the grid to a potential backup for homes with enough production and storage. At $20-50/kWh, a battery that obfuscates the need for grid as the primary source is a blessing we need to encourage and nurture..
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.
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?
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.
Auke Hoekstra’s piece makes a compelling case that sodium batteries will reach ~$8/kWh by 2030, triggering a wholesale grid transformation. The directional argument is reasonable, but the specifics don’t survive scrutiny.
The cost projection extrapolates 59% annual production growth for seven straight years — a trajectory no technology has sustained at scale. More importantly, Hoekstra conflates raw material costs with finished cell costs, ignoring electrolytes, separators, casings, and gigafactory capital — which add $15–30/kWh on top of materials alone.
The most consequential flaw is the leap from cell cost to system cost. Cells are only 35–45% of a fully installed grid battery — power electronics, thermal management, civil works, and grid interconnection make up the rest. If sodium cuts cell cost by $15–20/kWh versus LFP, system-level savings are perhaps 10–15%. That’s meaningful, but not transformative — and sodium’s lower energy density partially erases even that advantage.
So extrapolating the learning curve gives us $8/kWh in 2030 while material costs could become a few dollar per kWh. And this is without even talking about e.g. Lithium Sulfur batteries that would cost just as little but would also be extremely light.
projecting past into the future is a at best naive
did lead batteries become so cheap after centuries of existence? Why is the resale price so much higher than the material used to make them?
and how about other costs like installation, transport, environmental handling, etc
Also everyone will have to have at least enough storage for 8-30 days depending on location otherwise grid will need to be maintained as it is
I was just in Professor Trancik's (Jessika) course. We were fact/data/numerically driven--leaving silly opinions based on assumptions behind us. There is way too much of that these days. Also we can DIRECT the market and the adoption, and the tech readiness, by inserting actions/policy/$ in the right places. There is no "free" market. Interested parties are always rigging and influenncing. Coming at that from a CLEAN FUTURE motivation seems like a worthy pursuit. Manipulating the market happens everyday. Doing that for societal benefit, rather than profit is all good, as they say.
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
Do you think the global market can absorb 10 doublings of battery production rate? This is 2^10 = 1024 fold. The factories have to pay off, so they have to produce a couple of years (how many exactly?) to deliver ROI > 1.
You have forecast the cost of anode and cathode materials, but you have missed the cost of the conductors. Copper is about 1.2 kg/kWh, aluminum about 0.8 kg/kWh. Those two materials add about $20 to the battery raw material costs and neither material has been dropping in price, nor are they likely to drop in price. Both materials are likely to be needed for Sodium batteries, placing a lower limit on battery material costs.
With regard to utility scale batteries, you can get real time quotes on Tesla's website. A 4 hour battery pack with inverter costs about $220/kWh, not including site works and installation. They wouldn't be able to charge that price if competitors were selling them for less.
Great article. I really buy into this theory too. do you think materias like cement and steel could ever benefit from the same learning curves? Or is there a cut off between a technology and commodity...if so what is that?. I ask because i buy into this theory so much that the cost bottleneck then i think is cement and steel. Its also the decarbonisation bottle neck.
20 kWh? How about 100kWh of storage? At $20/kWh that's just $2000. An even bigger battery would not only "smooth out the curve" but turn the utility into a backup power source for the rare times the sun and the batteries cannot supply your need. Net-metering permit queue backup? No problem. Batteries mean we don't need to sell back to the utility, just avoid buying whenever possible. With solar buy back rates sliding downward, we don't need to worry. Savings from not buying utility supplied grid electrons can exceed net metering income. All we need are inexpensive batteries. Bring 'em on.
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)
This is a heap of shit. Green Washing Koombaya garbage.
The Emirates has recently commenced construction on a $6 billion solar project, combining a 5.2 GW solar plant with a 19 GWh battery storage. The system aims to provide one gigawatt of continuous, “renewable” energy on a 24/7 basis. But why does one need to store so much electricity in one of the sunniest regions of the world to do that? And what does this tells us about the rest of the planet trying to switch to wind and solar? There is a lot to unpack here and plenty of lessons to be learned, including one on how solar could still help us on our long way down the Hubbert-curve… Because, like it or not, when the Gulf Arabs start spending billions on solar panels, you can be sure that the slippery downslope of world oil production is clearly in sight.
https://thehonestsorcerer.substack.com/p/the-emirates-shows-us-how-not-to
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.
I'm bemused by extrapolation applied to physics.
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."
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.
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.
>> 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).
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.
Very interesting. I am also persuaded that the transformation of our energy systems will occur in a bottom-up fashion, where nations, companies and individuals can have their own energy production and storage; thereby becoming more energy independent. Nobody wants to be subject to volatile fossil fuel prices any more. Cheaper prices will drive the transition, but resilience will be the nail in the coffin of fossil fuels.
I think many are missing the boat: as prices drop, batteries WILL become a ubiquitous homeowner asset, subject to economics and Wright's Law (and Moore's Law). There are also many chemistries in the pipeline (sodium, solid state, sulfur, aluminum), and many alternatives being developed. Battery is not synonymous with NMC or LFP. That's a current tech. We shouldn't get caught up with supply chain caveats, as there will also be recycling/recovery (we are currently able to recover 98%).
Battery cost WILL come down, and stationary home batteries supplant the need for smart-everything. they also are not requiring the same space efficiency (energy density) of EV battery packs, although the EV manufacturers are the logical source for home cells. Storage at the location of renewable generation changes EVERYTHING. Solar + storage will be a great appliance for power generation, to add to refrigeration (for food) and heat pumps (for heat and hot water) and stoves (for cooking). It also reduces the need to upgrade the grid, as most electrical flow is local, and reduces the input side of the Sankey chart, since there would be no fuel and virtually no line loss.
Changing to a model where there are DERs with storage makes the homeowner a producer and reduces the grid to a potential backup for homes with enough production and storage. At $20-50/kWh, a battery that obfuscates the need for grid as the primary source is a blessing we need to encourage and nurture..
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.
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?
So we can install 14 TWh of batteries (10 billion euro that our government reserved for 4 new nuclear power plants)
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.
Auke Hoekstra’s piece makes a compelling case that sodium batteries will reach ~$8/kWh by 2030, triggering a wholesale grid transformation. The directional argument is reasonable, but the specifics don’t survive scrutiny.
The cost projection extrapolates 59% annual production growth for seven straight years — a trajectory no technology has sustained at scale. More importantly, Hoekstra conflates raw material costs with finished cell costs, ignoring electrolytes, separators, casings, and gigafactory capital — which add $15–30/kWh on top of materials alone.
The most consequential flaw is the leap from cell cost to system cost. Cells are only 35–45% of a fully installed grid battery — power electronics, thermal management, civil works, and grid interconnection make up the rest. If sodium cuts cell cost by $15–20/kWh versus LFP, system-level savings are perhaps 10–15%. That’s meaningful, but not transformative — and sodium’s lower energy density partially erases even that advantage.
So extrapolating the learning curve gives us $8/kWh in 2030 while material costs could become a few dollar per kWh. And this is without even talking about e.g. Lithium Sulfur batteries that would cost just as little but would also be extremely light.
projecting past into the future is a at best naive
did lead batteries become so cheap after centuries of existence? Why is the resale price so much higher than the material used to make them?
and how about other costs like installation, transport, environmental handling, etc
Also everyone will have to have at least enough storage for 8-30 days depending on location otherwise grid will need to be maintained as it is
I was just in Professor Trancik's (Jessika) course. We were fact/data/numerically driven--leaving silly opinions based on assumptions behind us. There is way too much of that these days. Also we can DIRECT the market and the adoption, and the tech readiness, by inserting actions/policy/$ in the right places. There is no "free" market. Interested parties are always rigging and influenncing. Coming at that from a CLEAN FUTURE motivation seems like a worthy pursuit. Manipulating the market happens everyday. Doing that for societal benefit, rather than profit is all good, as they say.
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
Do you think the global market can absorb 10 doublings of battery production rate? This is 2^10 = 1024 fold. The factories have to pay off, so they have to produce a couple of years (how many exactly?) to deliver ROI > 1.
You have forecast the cost of anode and cathode materials, but you have missed the cost of the conductors. Copper is about 1.2 kg/kWh, aluminum about 0.8 kg/kWh. Those two materials add about $20 to the battery raw material costs and neither material has been dropping in price, nor are they likely to drop in price. Both materials are likely to be needed for Sodium batteries, placing a lower limit on battery material costs.
With regard to utility scale batteries, you can get real time quotes on Tesla's website. A 4 hour battery pack with inverter costs about $220/kWh, not including site works and installation. They wouldn't be able to charge that price if competitors were selling them for less.
Great article. I really buy into this theory too. do you think materias like cement and steel could ever benefit from the same learning curves? Or is there a cut off between a technology and commodity...if so what is that?. I ask because i buy into this theory so much that the cost bottleneck then i think is cement and steel. Its also the decarbonisation bottle neck.