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Analysis finds anytime electricity from solar available as battery costs plummet
- ramshanker 9mo agoHas any production battery become cheaper than LEAC ACID for computer UPS ? I have not seen new cheaper UPS getting launched.
- fyrn_ 9mo agoMany "solar power stations" can be used as a UPS, with competitive switching speed. Just not sold under that label. You can even get one made entirely in the US, but it will cost you: https://enphase.com/store/portable-energy/iq-powerpack-1500-with-accessories https://enphase.com/store/portable-energy/iq-powerpack-1500-... But yeah, the cheap chinese "power stations" run circles around most UPS capacity wise. UPS market is very complacent.
- jcheng 9mo agoSeems like an opportunity for someone
- nomel 9mo agoNo, it's a bad fit. it would be pure marketing. Lipo slowly destroy themselves when charged. Lead acid slowly destroy themselves when not charged.
- cogman10 9mo agoThere are different LIPO chemistries. LFP in particular has little problem with being fully charged. You'll see it get swapped in for lead acid chemistries even in places like car/motorcycle batteries. If you want an Lithium power supply then the keyword to look for is "LFP".
- gpm 9mo agoAnd LFP is also cheaper per unit energy and less of a fire hazard. Hard to imagine why you would use a different lithium-chemistry in a UPS.
- lesuorac 9mo agoCan't we just not push the lipos to 100% and have the UPS maintain a ~60% charge instead and get a long life span?
- fyrn_ 9mo agoMany of these power stations (including the one I linked) are LFP chemistry
- rightbyte 9mo agoUPS is kinda different since they are hardly used. I haven't done the calculation but it would guess lead acid is still cheaper?
- PaulKeeble 9mo agoLead Acid as far as I know is about $500 per KWh of usable space due to their depth of discharge being limited to about 50% and then they last about 3 to 5 years if they kept within their 500 cycles at most. Whereas a LiPho battery will last 10-15 years, 6000 cycles and costs about £120 a KWh. So I have no idea how UPS based on lead acid is ending up cheaper, its not based on the battery tech cheapness.
- literalAardvark 9mo agoUPS aren't really cheaper. Sure, up front you're paying very little for that box that can run your PC for an hour. But over 2-4 years you'll have to replace that UPS after it fails catastrophically in really dumb ways, and that's if you're lucky and it doesn't also burn your house down, whereas a proper storage system will last for a long, long time with more capability. In my business I've never had a deskside UPS live longer than that. And yes, we don't buy the ultra expensive ones. That's true.
- Rebelgecko 9mo agoSome of the power stations from Ecoflow/Anker/Bluetti are competitive in terms of price and capacity while still having a fast enough switchover for UPS purposes. They tend to have features that may not be necessary for a UPS (eg solar or DC input), while lacking some features that are more common on UPS (eg companion app to turn your computer off when UPS gets low, although you might be able to rig your own solution)
- Nextgrid 9mo agoProblem with Lithium ones is that they tend to be quite flammable. Lead acid is mostly inert I believe?
- onraglanroad 9mo agoWeirdly, none of the many phones, tablets and laptops I've owned have ever caught on fire. I guess I've just been lucky.
- bingo-bongo 9mo agoIt’s not as much about the risk of failure, as both are safe when the correct safety measures are in place. But what might happen when they fail - thermal runaway is no joke with lithium-ion, ask any firefighter.
- pfdietz 9mo agoI've had laptop batteries swell up, which is disconcerting to say the least.
- andruby 9mo agoLFP is a lot safer than NMC. I think it's almost on par with Lead-Acid.
- SigmundA 9mo agoThe acid in lead acid is sulfuric acid and if overcharged vents hydrogen gas, thats why they need a ventilated space typically. Sealed lead acid have safety vents that might pop if enough pressure builds. They are most certainly not inert, they just have well established safety and charging protocols and are not used in very high quantities together because of their low energy density and cycle life. LFP batteries which have iron phosphate cathodes are very stable compared to colbalt based batteries that tend to have catastrophic failures due to overcharge causing cathode failure. LFP have higher cycle life and are cheaper and typically whats used for storage and application where the loss in erergy density is not a big deal.
- ulnarkressty 9mo agoEaton and APC at least have models with LFP chemistry, with comparable prices across power ratings. The LFP will be more expensive though due to the increased longevity, at least until lead-acid ones stops being produced.
- rssoconnor 9mo agoDo not try this at home, but I replaced the lead acid battery in my UPS with a LFP battery. From what I read online, the charging curves for lead acid batteries and LFP batteries are very similar. The LFP batteries have a slightly higher charging voltage, so I expect my LFP battery to only charge upto about 80% capacity or so due to the charging voltage being slightly too low. I'm hoping the battery will last 10 years instead of 2 or 3 years. Do not try this at home, as changing battery chemistry is quite ill advised.
- JoeAltmaier 9mo ago$33 per MWh for solar. What is it for coal or natural gas? Maybe half that?
- Panino 9mo agoWhy would you think that? Solar and wind are both far cheaper than fossil fuels even ignoring the problems caused by coal and methane. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cost_of_electricity_by_source https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cost_of_electricity_by_source
- mikeyouse 9mo agoFuel cost for gas/coal can be rounded to $2/MWH - so then you need to amortize the cost of the plant over all the energy produced and you get to roughly 2x fuel cost for nat gas plants and 3x - 5x for coal ones. See page 10 here for sensitivity to fuel costs though; https://www.lazard.com/news-announcements/lazard-releases-2025-levelized-cost-of-energyplus-report-pr/ https://www.lazard.com/news-announcements/lazard-releases-20...
- mlwiese 9mo agoNo, Lazard estimates the fuel cost is $22-$23/MWh for Gas Combined Cycle, and $13-$18/MWh for Coal. See pages 39-40 of https://www.lazard.com/media/0sopmth5/lazard-releases-2025-levelized-cost-of-energyplus-report.pdf https://www.lazard.com/media/0sopmth5/lazard-releases-2025-l...
- fyrn_ 9mo agoIn the US as of June 2024: Gas peaker plants are: $110-228 And Gas combined cycle: $45-108 PV in the US is also more expensive than globally however: $38-171 for Utility scale with storage, when including subsidies, $60-210 when not. Coal is so much worse in every cost metric than gas combined cycle it's not worth considering, even leaving the pollution aside. https://www.energy.gov/sites/default/files/2024-12/34-%20Exh.%20FF-%20Lazard%27s.pdf https://www.energy.gov/sites/default/files/2024-12/34-%20Exh...
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- aswegs8 9mo agoAm I dumb or does that sentence "Analysis finds anytime electricity from solar available as battery costs plummet" make no sense grammatically?
- FfejL 9mo agoThe actual headline is: Analysis finds "anytime electricity" from solar available as battery costs plummet. Those missing quotes go a long way to making the headline make sense.
- k1t 9mo agoI think they meant "viable" instead of "available"
- hammock 9mo agoJust read the subhead. It explains everything. Ember’s report outlines how falling battery capital expenditures and improved performance metrics have lowered the levelized cost of storage, making dispatchable solar a competitive, anytime electricity option globally.
- malfist 9mo agoIts still really confusing. A better title would be "When solar power from batteries are available, costs plummet" Or since power has no provenience, "When batteries are available, electricity prices fall"
- state_less 9mo agoThe scaling up of battery manufacturing for EVs and now solar storage has lead to prices I would have never imagined I'd see in my lifetime. It's one of the success stories that, having lived through it, has been a real joy. I know that folks might have been able to point to a graph years ago and said we'd be here eventually, but I had my doubts given the scale required and hacking through all the lobbying efforts we saw against solar/battery. Alas, we made it here!
- ak217 9mo agoAlas is right, China is poised to dominate battery, solar, and EV technology and to translate it to military technology as well. Meanwhile the Republicans are blowing up US alliances and sabotaging the battery/EV industrial development policy that was actually making progress in giving the US hope in catching up.
- calvinmorrison 9mo agogood. maybe we can copy some shit for cheap and leap frog a few generations instead of leading the world!
- jfengel 9mo agoUnlikely, since our labor costs are still considerably higher than elsewhere. For a very long time our economy has rested on developing high margin products and letting others do the low-marginal-overhead of making it. We assumed that they were not going to catch up to us as innovators. That was a dangerous mistake, and we may be left with nothing.
- dalyons 9mo agoChinas labor costs are no longer cheap either. They just have higher tech factories now.
- sdoering 9mo agoSame here in Germany/Europe. Our conservatives actually destroyed the solar industry for the third time. Our conservative party has actually destroyed significantly more jobs in solar industries over the last 20 years than it keeps alive with subsidies of 70k€ - 100k€ per person working in that industry (direct and indirect subsidies make the 70 - 100k€ range). But hey, our populist right tell us, that the subsidies for "green technology" are bad and that we need to get rid of them, because they are making energy so expensive in Germany (cleared of inflation energy costs are lower than 2013, 12 years ago). But hey - people vote for those parties. Because they know their economics, not like the leftists, who don't. Germany (or Europe in general) is fucked. In a few years, we will reap what we now sow. And not because of our social systems or immigration, but because our oh so great political leaders are not willing to invest in the future.
- codersfocus 9mo agoDoes anyone know whether it makes sense to setup solar arrays closer to users or to concentrate them in sunny places and send them throughout the country? e.g. an analysis of whether we should setup all the solar farms in Nevada for the whole country... set them up in the general south and transmit north... or will each state have their own farms?
- hn_throwaway_99 9mo agoHigh voltage transmission lines are really quite efficient, and concentrating generation is usually the right choice. That said, it doesn't make sense to have just a single place for the entire country, as there are multiple grids in the US (primarily East, West, and Texas), and with very long transmission you can get into phase issues.
- epistasis 9mo agoConcentrating generation made sense when transmission was cheap in comparison. But one effect of ever cheaper solar is that transmission costs start to dominate generation costs, because transmission is not getting cheaper. Cheap solar and storage requires rethinking every aspect and all conventional wisdom about the grid. Storage in particular is a massive game changer on a scale that few in the industry understand.
- estimator7292 9mo agoWe don't put all our coal and gas plants out in the desert, they're next to and within our cities. Physically transporting electricity across distance is very expensive and a not-insignificant amount of power is simply lost on the way. These problems only get worse as the amount of power goes up, and the danger grows very quickly as power goes up. Plus the strategic and logistical benefits of distributed generation. Simply put you can't centralize generation for the entire country. There's no practical way to actually transport that much power. Not with the technology we have today. If we had high-temperature superconductors then it would make more sense. But with standard metal wires, it's not happening.
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- empiricus 9mo agoAll nice and beautiful, but I don't understand how will this work in the winter in the temperate areas. You maintain parallel natural gas installations and ramp them up in the winter? Does this doubles the cost?
- Carlseymanh 9mo agoOne of the few problem of nuclear is summer time water use. Combining solar with nuclear would be the best option in my opinion.
- datadrivenangel 9mo agoNuclear plants, like most large thermal plants, are almost always located near large bodies of water and return that water downstream so it doesn't really matter?
- moooo99 9mo agoIt does when you care about the environmental impact of your cooling (and also consider the fact that droughts are an increasingly severe problem).
- pbmonster 9mo agoIt matters when the level of that body of water drops by a lot in summer and the water temperature rises at the same time. Add environmental laws (cooking the fish is discouraged), and your nuke plant needs to go into safety shutdown pretty reliably every summer.
- lukan 9mo agoIt matters if people don't want to see the rivers full of dead fish, so last year there were already shutdowns because of heatwaves. https://www.euronews.com/2025/07/02/france-and-switzerland-shut-down-nuclear-power-plants-amid-scorching-heatwave https://www.euronews.com/2025/07/02/france-and-switzerland-s...
- Zigurd 9mo ago
- buckle8017 9mo agoOk now shift summer sun into winter.
- gpm 9mo agoJust build more solar. You generate excess electricity in summer and enough in winter. This isn't a problem.
- Youden 9mo agoI live in Switzerland and my house currently consumes 35-40kWh of electricity each day. I'm in the process of installing as many panels as possible on my roof and right now in winter, they're forecasted to produce ~18kWh on a good day. While it'll be possible for me to be more than fully self-sufficient in summer, I'd need roughly 3x more panels to come close to having a chance in winter, plus far more battery storage than is reasonable. I suspect it might be more doable somewhere with milder winters, like Italy but especially as you go further north and the days get shorter, there's just no chance. For it to work in places with large seasonal differences, we need something else (e.g. nuclear) and/or storage.
- buckle8017 9mo agoThe over build causes these rosey projections about power prices from solar to turn on their heads. 6.5 cents/kWh is pretty good, 65 cents though is terrible. Actually difference is more than 10:1 too
- apexalpha 9mo agoA very large part of the people on this planet have (almost) no winters. We could start with those ~3 billion people. Also wind has proven to be a very good supplement to pv.
- buckle8017 9mo agoThose people already use almost no energy compared to everybody else.
- jmward01 9mo agoBatteries are probably going to kill long-range transmission lines and open up remote generation at a scale never thought possible. Desert solar, remote hydro, etc etc. As the price continues to fall and the density continues to rise the economics of transmission completely change and will decouple the location of power generation from the use of that power dramatically. This decoupling of location and use will drastically reshape energy production. Right now is likely the time to buy sunny land in the middle of nowhere but near train tracks.
- gpm 9mo agoI think long range transmission remains a thing anywhere having a local grid remains a thing (which will be most places for other reasons). Load-balancing the area having a cloudy few days and the area having a sunny days and the area having a windy few days and so on will remain extremely valuable. It lets you install a lot less batteries and isn't that much infrastructure given that the last mile problems are dealt with already.
- pfdietz 9mo agoThe point being made is that if smoothing over time becomes sufficiently cheap then smoothing over space is supplanted. It would be nice if this happened before the next Carrington Event (or the next nuclear war with orbital EMP weapons.)
- gpm 9mo agoI get that, I'm just disagreeing that we should be looking forwards to storage becoming that cheap. Particularly when our cheap energy sources (solar, wind) have a lot of location specific variability over time. With some exceptions for sufficiently remote (or sufficiently always-sunny and not too dense) places that local grids themselves are no longer worth it
- algo_trader 9mo agoThe original report by Ember [1] is decent but clearly biased. They assume each battery cycles entirely EVERY day - even in winter. They also assume PV is never curtailed - not even in summer. They of course ignore multi-day weather anomalies. Like wise for weekend/holiday demand variations. etc. The best part of the report are real world bids of 2025 ESS projects. [1] https://ember-energy.org/latest-insights/how-cheap-is-battery-storage/ https://ember-energy.org/latest-insights/how-cheap-is-batter...
- neuroelectron 9mo agoFor about $100 the black friday, i got a ridiculous overkill LFP battery for my router and fiber modem. Would last about a week with no power.
- apexalpha 9mo agoIt’s somewhat humbling that this is essentially entirely done by one country. For all their faults, I am in awe of the scale and success of their industrial policy.
- nutjob2 9mo agoIt's amazing what you can achieve when you control everything in a nation and can execute anyone who disagrees.
- ponector 9mo agoIf it was a real reason of their success we would see amazing results in russia and their friends: Iran, Korea and other countries.
- ben_w 9mo agoOf "control everything" and "execute anyone who disagrees", only the former is useful; the latter is kinda why Russia (and the USSR before it) are failing despite also having a government that could control everything. You only achieve greatness when your control gets you to do the correct thing. Strong governments make decisions faster, not better. Freedom to debate, to speak out against bad governance, to speak truth to power, democracy, all that's a system to keep a government pointing in the right direction, it slows down decision making but (generally) also increases the accuracy of that decision making. Same deal with free markets in capitalism: its a feedback mechanism, Tim Cook can announce the Vision Pro and Zuckerberg the Metaverse, direct their teams to spend whatever number of billions was necessary to develop them, market says no.
- alsetmusic 9mo agoName checks out.
- pfdietz 9mo agoThey have a new kind of R&D organization that may be worth emulating. https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/china-has-invented-a-whole-new-way https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/china-has-invented-a-whole-new... (partially behind paywall, sorry)