Comment by bryanlarsen
2 days ago
We need about 30TWh of batteries to decarbonize the world's grid. China has 1TWh per year of capacity, increasing 50% per year.
Cost is currently $35/kWh, dropping 20% per year.
2 days ago
We need about 30TWh of batteries to decarbonize the world's grid. China has 1TWh per year of capacity, increasing 50% per year.
Cost is currently $35/kWh, dropping 20% per year.
You’re again not considering electrification of current loads that burn fossil fuels. Unfortunately, a lot of these loads are closer to 24/7 and will require more storage. The IEA net zero scenario assumes 100TWh of storage and may not be enough.
Total installed system costs— not batteries alone— are estimated at $300B/TWh. So that is on the order of $30T at current prices (some estimates reach to $100T). And of course, these investments don’t last forever— we can’t be kicking 3pc of GDP to storage.
I expect this to improve, but having some clean, always-on generation greatly reduces the amount of storage and overprovisioned production of other types needed.
> we can’t be kicking 3pc of GDP to storage.
Yes we can, indefinitely, and doing so saves money relative to fossil fuels (which are currently about $8T/year[0]) and nuclear (which is on the expensive side of electricity compared to fossil fuels anyway).
[0] https://www.precedenceresearch.com/fossil-fuels-market
3% GDP over a single decade is certainly not a trivial amount, but it's worth noting the comparison here is spending more than that every year forever.
Similarly, 100 TWh sounds like a huge number, and it is, but it's like the equivalent capacity of one base Model 3 per 6 people globally. It's a lot in absolute terms, for sure, but it's by no means a crazy unachievable quantity of battery for a family of 6 to use.
If I wasn’t clear: 3 percent of gdp is the ballpark perpetual capital cost with present technology and a 20 year storage system life. Just capital costs and just storage. Versus all of energy being roughly 5pc of global GDP now.
That is assuming we can hit that scale in the next couple decades and that nothing happens to push up costs with increased scale. More likely is a moderate cost increase, but who knows? Putting all our eggs in the battery storage basket is not great.
Just a few percent more stable base generation in the mix would greatly reduce the amount of storage needed and open more options (e.g making power to gas more reasonable)
It may be cheaper overall; it may not be. But even if you think this is modestly costlier, reducing risk and volatility of outcomes is something that one often chooses to pay for.
5 replies →
>You’re again not considering electrification of current loads that burn fossil fuels
You're not considering cost.
>Unfortunately, a lot of these loads are closer to 24/7
The exact opposite is true. Heating, cooling and car charging are just 3 examples of current loads that burn fossil fuels which are already being demand shifted on an electric grid.
>The IEA net zero scenario assumes 100TWh of storage
Did you assume it was all going to be achieved with batteries? This is a common fallacy perpetuated by nuclear industry propaganda.
350GWh are being built in australia right now with zero batteries, and studies show there is plenty of geography suitable to build plenty more of that around the world.
Power2gas+solar+wind is still cheaper than nuclear power even though it's quite expensive.
>but having some clean, always-on generation greatly reduces the amount of storage and overprovisioned production of other types needed
and there is zero point if the cost is stupidly high (which it is) and we have the imagination to look beyond just batteries as a means of storing power.
Nuclear industry propaganda is alas not capable of such.
> Power2gas+solar+wind is still cheaper than nuclear power even though it's quite expensive.
The costing mistake people always make is assuming p2g infrastructure can be operated at high duty cycle with an all renewable grid. If you need to amortize the infrastructure over a few hours per day it looks much less favorable. Of course, with a little more stable base generation in the mix, this assumption is less shaky. It doesn’t need to be a ridiculous amount.
More base generation simultaneously makes p2g more reasonable and reduces the total need for it (and total need to overprovision everything else)
And even if one disagrees that a small amount of additional nuclear reduces total system cost, it absolutely reduces systemic risk vs putting all of our eggs in the battery basket.
Pumped hydro is great for Australia, but the capability to increase hydro in most areas is much more limited. We are going to have to mostly do it with batteries and intermediate term storage with p2g.
6 replies →