zlacker

I quite believe in it with the fact that it is feasible in the coming decades a way to redistirbute peak energy through daily storage. The problems in my opinion is assuming too much that everything will go as planned according to current trends (cheaper renewable, cheaper battery, enough production, 100+% penetration, etc). Because we're talking about several independent variables, and there's a chance (in my opinion quite large) that not everything will go as predicted.

If we find out in a few decades that the price of solar, batteries or renewables is no longer going down (and the reasons could be many, like a war, or a plateau in penetration), it could be enough to ruin those expectations. And discover that putting all our hopes in a single event could be our downfall.

Besides, even if daily storage is feasible, with current trends, we're still a long way from seasonal storage...

That's my opinion, which is why I think it's necessary to invest and believe in all technologies, without looking for the one we like the most or looks the most promising, since it leads to big bias and overestimation.

>>Herz+(OP)
There are enough innovations in the pipeline that it's very safe to predict continuing battery price drops for the next decade, another 80% reduction or so. It's possible it stops after a decade. At that point nuclear would need a 100x price reduction to compete.

>>bryanl+x2
https://assets.bbhub.io/professional/sites/24/fig1battery.pn...

Sorry but where do you see this 80% drop? When the price of storage seems close to reaching a plateau (which by the way is also what I assumed in previous comments).

I understand being optimistic, but you claim to know the future while also denying the present... It's ironic.

>>Herz+e4
Easy prediction with a 50% drop since last summer.

https://www.pv-magazine.com/2024/03/07/battery-prices-collap...

>>Herz+(OP)
People predict falling prices because that’s what fits the trends not because it’s necessary for a ‘green’ future.

We don’t need the price of solar or batteries to keep falling, or for large exponential growth to occur. Simply maintaining the current rate of solar energy installs over the next 25 years would result in a renewable heavy grid.

China is currently on pace to install ~300 GW of solar power in 2024 assuming they continue that for 25 years and give a minimal 15% capacity factor that’s already at 100% of their current electricity consumption before those panels hit end of life. Granted, demand would increase over that time period but keeping up with demand doesn’t require crazy exponential growth here.

Grid batteries are in a similar situation, companies aren’t installing them at scale because they don’t need to but there’s plenty of excess battery manufacturing capacity right now to fill the need as it shows up. Basically at current rate of renewable installs there becomes an economic incentive to slowly ramp up grid batteries.