[HN Gopher] Batteries: How cheap can they get?
___________________________________________________________________
Batteries: How cheap can they get?
Author : hoerensagen
Score : 144 points
Date : 2024-07-04 19:20 UTC (3 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (aukehoekstra.substack.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (aukehoekstra.substack.com)
| pfdietz wrote:
| He projects (at current growth and experience rates) that battery
| cells will reach $8/kWh by 2030. Wow!
| gorgoiler wrote:
| What level of subsidy do we give to batteries?
| bee_rider wrote:
| Surely it depends on what country you live in. Battery
| subsidies are mostly local at least.
|
| How do we even calculate the subsidy paid to fossil fuel
| companies by letting them externalize the cost of their mess
| onto the planet? Oh well that's for young people and future
| generations to care about!
| gorgoiler wrote:
| Thanks for fleshing out my quickly written question. I didn't
| really mean anything by it, just that I think it's an
| important factor that's overlooked in the linked article.
|
| The most useful idea to think about here, for me, is not what
| the raw market of economics batteries might be. Rather, the
| societal good that there would be if the state stepped in and
| just made batteries infinitesimally cheap for everyone.
|
| The state provides a lot of things that lubricate society:
| just as they send electricity to our homes, provide a central
| bank for the economy, schools for our children, and courts to
| mete out justice -- so too could they potentially ensure
| every citizen has X number of 18650 cells (or future
| equivalent) available to them to use as they see fit.
| sanxiyn wrote:
| > How do we even calculate the subsidy paid to fossil fuel
| companies by letting them externalize the cost of their mess
| onto the planet?
|
| I know this was rhetorical, but the standard method in the
| literature is Optimal Taxes on Fossil Fuel in General
| Equilibrium (2014).
|
| https://doi.org/10.3982/ECTA10217
| ss64 wrote:
| The cost of 50AH Li-Ion batteries is getting close to the point
| where they may start to compete with Lead acid for gas powered
| cars.
| catlikesshrimp wrote:
| The environment be damned: Regarding price / energy density,
| yes. They even have weight / energy density advantage.
|
| But Lithium batteries can't be recycled. Saying "We are almost
| there" and "The future looks bright about it" is "moving fast
| and breaking things" again
| justahuman74 wrote:
| They can be recycled, its just currently more expensive than
| the post-product
| bryzaguy wrote:
| I thought they could be recycled but at the moment it's
| cheaper to mine. Is that not true?
| mrob wrote:
| Recovering lithium from batteries is not cost effective
| compared with mining new lithium. However, battery recycling
| is possible and still worth doing, because it recovers more
| valuable metals such as cobalt or copper.
| philipkglass wrote:
| "Green Li-ion Marks the Opening of its First Commercial-Scale
| Lithium-Ion Battery Recycling Plant in Oklahoma"
|
| https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20240618645137/en/Gre.
| ..
| catlikesshrimp wrote:
| I was wrong for posting what really means "technically not
| possible"
|
| The real barrier for recycling waste is sustainability.
| This is the reason why e.g. TETRABRIK is considered
| recyclable, but it is actually not (I am posting about this
| parallel because it has been completely understood for
| several years)
|
| Anything can be recycled if we are pedantic. But will it
| actually stop generating waste? (or will they be silently
| exported ignored?) Will subsidies be sustainable? (not it
| even asking if it can be profitable) In reality, the
| "recyclable" brand is for the most part greenwashing.
|
| Now, the business ad about a venture capital bussiness you
| posted is nothing new. Last year there were 5 such touted
| recycling plants in Latin America, already. One of them is
| located in Costa Rica. Costa Rica doesn't have a Lithium
| battery waste issue. There, the electric cars are very few
| (and people who got them already want out), there are no
| electricity storage facilities. I am guessing here that
| they will import a ton (hundreds of tons) of waste from
| "Somewhere else"
|
| I am including an article on battery recycling that is easy
| to read. It is only 40 pages long.
|
| https://archive.ph/wip/XB8hw
|
| And, for more downvotes: Lithium batteries are as
| recyclable as a TETRAPAK: still generating waste, most of
| the time all of it ends up as waste.
| jjoonathan wrote:
| They can absolutely be recycled, lol.
| robocat wrote:
| Lead Acid batteries must get replaced every few years.
|
| An equivalent LiIon battery would not need to be replaced so
| quickly.
|
| So at some crossover point the environmental cost of X *
| recyclable Lead acid batteries is higher than LiIon
| batteries.
| catlikesshrimp wrote:
| Absolutely. Lead acid will be replaced with another
| chemistry. My concern is only about the environment. I
| developed the post some more
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40878252
| Aurornis wrote:
| Lithium batteries still have limitations with charging at low
| temperatures. OEMs can design systems that will warm the
| battery up to a temperature where it can be charged after the
| car is started, but it's not nearly as simple as dropping a
| lead-acid battery in.
| ssl-3 wrote:
| It isn't that simple today, but it can be.
|
| Integrate the new-fangled battery (of whatever specific
| chemistry), the BMS, and the heater into a box with just two
| posts on top (just like lead acid batteries have had for over
| a century). It can be designed to take care of itself.
|
| And if it's cheap enough to produce and sell, and offers good
| enough performance over its normal usable lifespan, then it
| doesn't need a diagnostic interface for sorting out issues
| any more than a lead acid car battery does today.
| silverquiet wrote:
| I looked at it and couldn't find any that offered enough
| cranking amps. I'm not sure how easy it would be to design a
| lifepo4 battery for the application.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| There are some out there. The one that comes to mind is
| Dakota Lithium. They have a few options with 1000 CCA.
| martythemaniak wrote:
| Current prices are kinda nutty and are largely determined by the
| size of your buy. Retail prices for home batteries (a few kWhs)
| are roughly $1000/kWh. A Model 3 gets you about $700/kWh (with
| two free motors and an ipad). A Tesla megapack is $290/kWh, but
| you have to spend $1000000 to get that price. Tesla probably gets
| cells from the factory at round $80-$90/kWh.
|
| Long-term it seems pretty reasonable that retail prices should be
| a small multiple of the factory price (which keeps decreasing),
| so I think $1000 for a 20kWh battery is totally reasonable.
| justahuman74 wrote:
| At $1k for 20kw/h, I'd be very tempted to massively over-panel
| the roof and front/back yard on pergolas, install 200kwh of
| battery and never deal with pg&e again
| huijzer wrote:
| Exactly. This is what Tony Seba is talking about for 10 years
| already! He talked about this in his 2014 book Clean
| Disruption of Energy and Transportation.
| NooneAtAll3 wrote:
| what's pg&e?
| oblio wrote:
| Utility company somewhere in the US.
| fragmede wrote:
| They are the utility company that covers most of
| California. They recently raised rates and customers are
| unhappy. They are a for-profit and their lack of spending
| on maintenance has caused a number of fires which has
| killed people, leading them to be unpopular, among other
| reasons.
| lanstin wrote:
| They killed people thru giant fires exacerbated by
| climate change then get sued and pay billions of dollars
| in restitution and then raise the rates for the regular
| folks.
| mperham wrote:
| A source of very expensive electricity in California.
| GaggiX wrote:
| >Tesla probably gets cells from the factory at round
| $80-$90/kWh.
|
| Where I live there is a warehouse where you can withdraw new
| MANYI Lifepo4 cells at around 97EUR/kwh (a single cell) after
| contacting the seller on Alibaba, so I'm guessing Telsa is
| getting them at 80 or even less.
| hgomersall wrote:
| In the UK you can buy a battery at PS160/kWh, complete with BMS
| and thermal management:
| https://www.fogstar.co.uk/collections/solar-battery-storage/...
|
| For less than PS130/kWh if you're willing to build it yourself,
| you can get a slightly less capable setup:
| https://www.fogstar.co.uk/collections/solar-battery-storage/...
| jonathanlydall wrote:
| USD 1,000 per kw/h seems very high to me.
|
| A couple of years ago here in South Africa I paid about ZAR
| 30,000 (USD 1,650) as a consumer for a 5kw/h battery, and I
| just checked online now, I can apparently get a similar battery
| for half that:
|
| https://www.ecohub.co.za/shop/solar-power/lithium-batteries/...
| foobazgt wrote:
| At $6343 [1] for 13.5kwh [2], seems closer to $500/kwh? The
| federal rebate does help substantially, but most folks should
| qualify. This # is closer to $400/kwh if you buy with solar,
| and $300 if you're buying a few instead of just one.
|
| Re: car batteries, the difference between the rear-wheel drive
| and long range is about 20kwh (60kwh vs 80kwh), for $8K. That's
| $400/kwh and doesn't even include all the other trim
| differences like having dual motors instead of single.
|
| So, it looks like reality is closer to $300-$400/kwh,
| depending. Not close to your ideal of $50/kwh, but still much
| better than $1000/kwh.
|
| 1) https://www.tesla.com/energy/design/overview 2)
| https://service.tesla.com/docs/Public/Energy/Powerwall/Power...
| rootusrootus wrote:
| > Retail prices for home batteries (a few kWhs) are roughly
| $1000/kWh.
|
| Do you mean the installed price? Including inverters and such?
| $1000/kWh is more than 4x what you can buy LFP batteries for
| off Amazon.
| icapybara wrote:
| I'd rather hear a projection from an
| engineer/scientist/operations person in the industry. This kinda
| reads like it's written by an armchair expert who thinks about
| batteries a lot, but doesn't have much to do with building that
| future being described.
|
| Sometimes the technical details matter and projected scaling
| trends aren't an inevitability.
| jtbayly wrote:
| He claims the expert estimates have been wrong every year (too
| conservative).
| marcosdumay wrote:
| To the extent that have been expert estimates out there, they
| do have been consistently wrong. The same happens to solar
| and wind generation.
|
| But well, I haven't seen any that don't have a conflict of
| interest into claiming fossil fuels will continue to be
| required. And that's a large part of the problem: you just
| won't find uninterested experts publishing estimates.
| tux3 wrote:
| It does seem to be written by someone who's very far above the
| ground -- even managing to throw the blockchain in there at the
| end.
|
| But the point they're making is reasonable. Just because the
| author isn't deeply technical doesn't mean they can't fit an
| exponential and extrapolate correctly.
|
| Exponential growth always has to stop somewhere, but that's not
| in and of itself a reason to think this year is the year that
| it will. The napkin math about sodium and battery cost is at
| least reasonable, it's worth considering seriously rather than
| handwaving the author away as not an engineer.
| icapybara wrote:
| Fair. I guess I have an issue with technology projections
| that assume the technology will follow some fit, because it
| always has. Every bit of progress is made with tons of risky
| work and breakthroughs, and none of it is guaranteed like you
| would think it is just by looking at a fit.
| jillesvangurp wrote:
| And sometimes an exponential is staring you in your face and
| you just don't realize it. This has happened before. Early
| computer scientist did not imagine anything like you and I take
| for granted and put in our pockets without thinking about it
| every day. That's only a generation or so ago. Two if you are
| half my age (50).
|
| IMHO, the theme of this century is making cheap, sustainable
| energy so ridiculously abundant that we'll be wondering what
| the hell we were doing before and how we managed without it.
| There are so many technological breakthroughs converging on
| making that happen that IMHO this is just going to happen. It's
| a question of when, not if. The timelines are uncertain, but
| not really. The author of this article is extrapolating a few
| trends over a time scale that is rather short. He could be
| wrong. Even by a factor 5. And it would still happen on a
| reasonable timeline. And I don't think he's going to be that
| far of the mark. 2030-2035 it will be RIP ice engines and
| fossil fuels. You'd be out of your mind to use anything else
| than dirt cheap electrons stored in dirt cheap batteries. At
| 50$ per kwh, it's a no brainer. At 5$/kwh, you'd have to be bat
| shit crazy to use anything else. That's 'only' a 10x
| improvement.
|
| Assuming all innovation grinds to a halt in 2024 and that no
| technical progress will happen beyond 2024 seems like the naive
| point of view when there's so much happening that is well
| funded and seemingly on track to get some kind of results. The
| opposite view on this is of course that progress is a foregone
| conclusion. Some things will taper off and other things we
| haven't even thought off might pick up the slack. Between now
| and 2030, you can make a few educated guesses though. Which is
| what this author is doing.
|
| Anyway, cheap, clean energy is transformative. Most of the
| major challenges right now are directly or indirectly bottle
| necked on energy. Making energy cheaper matters. 2x is nice.
| 10x is nicer. 100x is what we might actually see in a few
| decades. Anything in between would be transformative. Anything
| beyond that is hard to imagine but yet not unlikely. We might
| actually nail fusion at some point. Who knows? It might even
| become cheap to do it.
|
| But we have a nice fusion plant that we orbit around beaming
| down orders of magnitude more energy than we actually need.
| We're learning how to harvest it using solar panels; a trick
| plants and trees have of course mastered ages ago. This article
| is about leveraging batteries for storage. The two things
| combined are a thing of beauty.
|
| The point about sodium ion is that there are no exotic/scarce
| materials in there. The materials are cheap. And we're not
| going to run out of them. How many twh. of battery could we
| need. Tens, hunders, thousands? We only use about 25pwh per
| year worth of electricity right now. That number is going to go
| up of course. What would you do with 25000 twh of battery?
| Annual production is about to cross the 1twh/year. And most of
| these batteries last a few decades. 25pwh of charged batteries
| is a lot of power. And yet we might have that sitting around in
| a few decades.
| jvanderbot wrote:
| I would love a 5-20kwh battery backup in my home, I even have a
| place for it. But when I called my local solar/battery installer
| they said that it was illegal to install grid-charged battery
| backups in home. I live in Minnesota.
|
| They even told me the power from a hypothetical solar rig is sold
| to the grid utility, not stored, and they give a discount on
| future winter rates as payment. This seems like a lousy deal.
| lazide wrote:
| Keep in mind, they also might be lying.
| jvanderbot wrote:
| This is totally reasonable. I can't find any confirmation of
| this anywhere.
| BenjiWiebe wrote:
| Is a grid-charged battery backup different than a UPS? I
| guarantee there's UPSs in use in Minnesota.
| jvanderbot wrote:
| I asked and they said "yeah it's the same and yeah it's still
| illegal."
|
| The difference is what side of the electrical box your
| equipment is on.
| jonathanlydall wrote:
| Aside from it benefiting energy companies, is there any
| justification for such a law?
|
| In South Africa we've had load shedding on and off since 2008.
| It's becoming pretty standard for middle class homes to have
| inverters with batteries and optionally solar.
|
| It does create an issue though that when a load shedding window
| ends, a whole lot of batteries start charging all at once
| (especially during non-daylight hours).
|
| Also due to load shedding, I don't get full use of my
| batteries. Ideally I would like my batteries to pretty much
| fully discharge over night with energy from my solar during the
| day, however, because load shedding is somewhat irregular here,
| I have it set to not go too low so it has enough energy to tide
| me over.
| SoftTalker wrote:
| Utilities get a local monopoly and guaranteed tariffs in
| exchange for the considerable investment in building out the
| supply grid and generating capacity, and the obligation to
| maintain it.
|
| If individuals are allowed to opt-out, that changes the
| financial promises made to the utilities. Of course this was
| mostly done at a time before it was economically feasible for
| anyone to go off-grid with solar and batteries.
|
| I quite honestly prefer this arrangement. I have zero desire
| to own and be responsible for the maintenance and safety of
| tens of thousands of dollars worth of on-premises
| solar/battery/electrical transfer switch gear. I'm quite
| happy to pay the local utility to run a cable to my
| electrical panel and have them be responsible for everything
| outside the walls of my house.
| jonathanlydall wrote:
| I agree it would be much more efficient on the whole if the
| grid manages energy storage in bulk.
|
| Unfortunately over here we have a monopoly awarded state
| owned power producer which has a history of incompetence
| and corruption.
|
| Maybe at some point our grid can be trusted to be reliable,
| but in the meantime everyone is either installing their own
| batteries or having no electricity for hours at a time.
| Tragic, but what else can you do.
| h0l0cube wrote:
| > Also due to load shedding, I don't get full use of my
| batteries.
|
| But your batteries will last much much longer at the lower
| cycle depth
| Tade0 wrote:
| If it's any consolation your battery will at least last
| longer than one which is always doing full cycles.
| jonathanlydall wrote:
| If the battery is only ever charged from solar and I
| uncharge it to the lowest safe level in the evenings, it
| lets me get the best possible return on my capital expense.
| How long it lasts doesn't matter in this regard.
|
| But in terms of using it for UPS purposes, it lasting
| longer would mean I won't need to expend capital again as
| soon.
|
| So I guess it depends on what you want out the battery.
|
| I did some math when I bought the battery and it seemed it
| would probably pay itself back before needing to be
| replaced, but it was questionable at our energy prices.
|
| I bought the system mostly for UPS reasons though,
| especially as I work from home and on a personal note,
| sitting in the dark several evenings a week or being unable
| to make coffee when you want, sucks.
| syntaxing wrote:
| There's been some pretty big deals from Ecoflow (I don't own
| any of their products nor affiliated). The Delta Ultra was on
| sale at Home Depot for $2800 before tax, 6 kWh battery, 7kWH
| continuous supply, with 21kWH peak wattage. Everything is built
| in including inverter. You can install their smart panel
| (probably requires a permit) and it'll switch between grid and
| battery for you. I'll be surprised these are illegal in your
| town but there's but some crazy local laws.
| murkt wrote:
| I have a 3.5 kWh battery backup in my apartment, since December
| 2022. Which is proving to be immensely helpful right now. I'm
| living in Kyiv, Ukraine and we have <10 hours of electricity
| daily these weeks, because lots of power stations are destroyed
| by Russians, and nuclear power stations are undergoing repairs
| and fuel recharge.
| dzhiurgis wrote:
| Because grid use (transport) costs 2-3x more than the power
| itself.
|
| Now imagine you produce 95% yourself. Instead of typical 15kw
| installation you only need 500w for when sun doesn't shine.
| Thats a reduction of 30x! Far cheaper inverters, thinner lines,
| etc. Unfortunately no one in the supply chain has wants this
| because thats lost profit.
| kccqzy wrote:
| You might as well just buy an electric vehicle with V2L or V2H
| functionality, and then add a generator outlet to your electric
| panel.
|
| The added benefit is that well, it's a battery strapped to a
| car. So if you have an extended power outage, you simply drive
| your car to a charger elsewhere and come back with a full
| charge. I'm sure Minnesota wouldn't be stupid enough to outlaw
| EV charging.
| ridgeguy wrote:
| Perhaps you could circumvent the regulatory inconvenience by
| getting your "battery" in the form of a Ford F150 Lightning
| pickup truck. It can power your home during grid outages, and
| of course can be charged from solar and/or the grid. One vendor
| is here: https://www.sunrun.com/ev-charging/ford-f150-lightning
| vitaflo wrote:
| Might want to check with a diff installer. Lots of solar
| installers in MN advertise battery backups. In fact a new law
| signed recently (and goes into effect in the next couple
| months) adds tax incentives for battery backups in homes.
| duffpkg wrote:
| Lifepo4 (lithium iron phosphate) batteries for the home are
| pretty cheap as of today. Power storage for residential use in a
| 48v metal rackable linkable system with battery management system
| (BMS) is $89/kwh shipped/duty paid from reputable chinese
| suppliers CATL/Seplos etc. You have to wait for sea shipping, add
| $30/kwh if you want to buy it in the US today.
|
| From the same suppliers sodium batteries are currently $130/kwh
| and about 26% less efficient in the same form factor. I look
| forward to this changing.
|
| Due to rising power costs I moved one of my homes completely to
| solar and battery (lifepo4) and haven't had any problems. I can't
| imagine ever going back to the power company. Panels have gotten
| to the point of being ridiculously cheap. I have a lot of space.
| I purchased pallets of used panels for more or less the cost of
| transportation ($34 per panel 270w). They produce about 85% of
| their nominal rating.
|
| I mention this because other comments mention costs that are much
| much higher.
| reaperman wrote:
| > _Due to rising power costs I moved one of my homes completely
| to solar and battery_
|
| Were you able to disconnect that home from the grid? Most
| places you're required to maintain a grid connection unless the
| home is in an exceptionally remote location.
|
| While pricing tends to be usage-based, true costs tend to be
| dominated by the capital expense of building base-load capacity
| for the few days your home might need to run fully on grid
| power. So as long as you're connected to the grid, you're still
| forcing the utility to spend about the same amount of money
| even if you only use grid power a few days out of the year.
| duffpkg wrote:
| Yes. Totally disconnected, zero power bill. That home is in a
| jurisdiction where that is permissible.
| ManuelKiessling wrote:
| How do you get through winter? I'm asking in good faith,
| I'm using a PV installation myself and cannot see how I
| could realistically get off the grid.
| dgacmu wrote:
| Over provision the panels by a good margin and have them
| at a more southerly angle (for northern hemisphere). You
| can play around on nrel pvwatts to see what configuration
| produces the most even expected monthly output:
| https://pvwatts.nrel.gov/pvwatts.php
|
| Most solar charge controllers allow a certain amount of
| PV overprovisioning.
| kolinko wrote:
| In central/northern Europe in january solar goves 10% of
| the output of summer, and you need 3-4x power to heat
| compared to cooling down in summer.
| eichin wrote:
| It is often surprising that most of the US is south of
| most of Europe (the common reference is that Chicago and
| Rome are both 42N. The jet stream complicates the effect
| on overall _climate_ , but latitude is pretty much the
| only thing that matters for solar power.)
| gpm wrote:
| Solar panels are mildly more efficient when colder, the
| same latitude in an area with similar cloud cover in
| north America is probably generally slightly _better_ for
| solar than Europe because it is colder, not sure if it
| would ever be more than a rounding error though.
| Retric wrote:
| Northern Europe is much further from the equator than
| most of the rest of the world. To the point where rooftop
| solar stops being a great option. That said there's a few
| ways to boost that 10%.
|
| PS: Geothermal can also slash energy needed for heating.
| Ground sourced heat pumps are the only reasonable small
| scale solution, but in urban areas going a little deeper
| starts to make a lot of sense.
| duffpkg wrote:
| This is in the american southwest so winters are very
| mild and the sun is still strong. Summer is the much more
| demanding part where AC is 90% of electricity use for the
| year. There would certainly be challenges in other
| locations but I think you could do the napkin math on it
| with panels being as cheap as they are. The solution to
| pretty much any deficit these days is to just add more
| panels. The biggest issue there is, is if you do not have
| sufficient space. My panels are ground mounted.
| thrtythreeforty wrote:
| In jurisdictions where that's not legal, can you
| realistically maintain a connection for just the cost of
| the customer fee and draw no other power? Or are there
| typically other roadblocks to installing solar in such
| places?
| GaggiX wrote:
| >I purchased pallets of used panels for more or less the cost
| of transportation ($34 per panel 270w)
|
| For comparison, I've seen pallets of new 24 410w panels at
| 58EUR per panel (transportation included), hopefully I'll see
| similar deals in the future when I will ready to jump into
| solar.
|
| Edit: I'm mostly worried because I don't know how sustainable
| the industry is when you can buy solar panels at such dirt
| cheap prices.
| davedx wrote:
| It's not sustainable. Solar panel producers are going to be
| in big trouble in 8-10 years I think.
| oezi wrote:
| In the 8 to 10 years panels will be even cheaper. Probably
| half of today. The price trajectory is still falling.
| GaggiX wrote:
| >Probably half of today.
|
| A 410W solar panel at 29EUR? I really doubt that
| honestly. Cheaper than plywood.
| Retric wrote:
| Efficiency going up is one way to reduce instillation
| costs which grid scale solar really cares about.
|
| 470W + even cheaper inverters seems likely.
| DaoVeles wrote:
| This is not shade on the original comment. But I do find
| it funny when economists that extrapolate out to
| infinity.
|
| Comely divorced from the real world materials and
| ecology.
| oezi wrote:
| Economies of scale baby. Another 10x more in production
| another 30% less in price.
| bufferoverflow wrote:
| Thin-film solar panels will be much cheaper than that.
| They will be printed in huge quantities.
| Retric wrote:
| I can see why 8-10 years looks like a wall in terms of how
| much total solar we want.
|
| However panels age which costs ~1% of capacity per year
| even before they need to be replaced, and global
| electricity demand tends to increase 2+%/year. So the more
| solar you install the more you need to install every year
| just to keep providing the same percentage of total
| electricity.
|
| On top of this lower prices mean you it's still worthwhile
| even if a larger percentage of output gets wasted.
| Similarly, as storage gets cheaper (inflation adjusted)
| there's going to be more demand to cheaply charge it thus
| raising the demand for panels.
| DaoVeles wrote:
| This is a controversial hypothesis that is merely from a
| idiot, being myself. I don't truly believe this but it
| something I have throught about.
|
| Energy costs are THE driving force of prices. The cost of
| materials is essentially the energy it takes to
| squire/process/ship them. If energy was free, we would just
| dig up random patches of dirt and sift it for every
| material we wanted even in trace amounts. But its not
| because unfortunately, we are still primarily a fossil fuel
| economy for many reasons (legacy, price, chemical
| properties) and their cheap price relative to labour is
| acting as a subsidie to renewables pricing. So if the
| availability of fossil fuels deminishes it seemed logical
| that the price of inputs goes up and so too would renewable
| manufacturing. We would then see an inverted bell shaped
| curve on pricing over time. I have long suspected we would
| see this trend of lowering prices revert around the 2020s.
| So far I have been pleasantly wrong.
|
| But fossil fuels like almost all minerals is fighting an
| uphill battle on availability and ore quality as we used
| the best stuff first. The US isnt fracking at the pace it
| is because they just wanted a laugh. It is due to the
| primary "conventional" stuff couldnt keep up. But that is a
| whole different issue.
|
| If renewables were offsetting fossil fuel usage, this
| wouldnt be a problem but it is merely being added on top of
| it. Thus Jevons paradox in full swing. If we can over come
| that then this whole idea can be thrown in the recyling
| bin.
|
| When we can make a solar panel with the outputs of a solar
| panel, then that is the escape velocity moment. And I don't
| just mean counting the joules and ignoring the energy
| fungability.
|
| I am much more optimistic about this in the last few years
| but im not sure we are there yet. It is looking reasonable
| now.
| pineaux wrote:
| How is this cheap? How much did you pay for the whole package?
| duffpkg wrote:
| That does not include the costs for inverters and other
| electrical system parts. I am not endorsing these vendors but
| I am happy with the result. My system paid for itself in less
| than 18 months. I have many years of experience buying from
| China in industry. I purchased batteries from Docan Power and
| BMS/battery housings from EEL Battery. My inverters are from
| EG4 and UL listed. You can see current pricing on their
| respective websites. I would say there is some learning curve
| for a complete novice. The diysolarforum.com is a good vendor
| neutral and honest resource for information.
| tgsovlerkhgsel wrote:
| > How is this cheap?
|
| It's $900 + inverters for 10 kWh. A Tesla Powerwall 2 (14
| kWh) is $10k (inverter included).
|
| I doubt the inverters cost more than $1k.
| dzhiurgis wrote:
| Why tesla charges 5x for their Powerwall? I know their software
| is excellent, but I haven't seen prices like that anywhere.
| specialist wrote:
| My guess: to throttle demand. Installers are generally in
| short supply and huge demand. So why not charge a premium?
| rootusrootus wrote:
| Because there's value in a brand name, they are using more
| expensive batteries (or they were, I think just recently they
| started shipping LFP), and you're paying for the plug-and-
| play convenience.
|
| Buying cells from CATL, adding a BMS, and putting all in a
| case is easy but still not trivial. Definitely not plug and
| play. You can absolutely get dirt cheap LFPs (like other
| people, I hang out on diysolarforum.com too), but it is not a
| competitor with the Powerwall unless you want something to
| tinker with or are simply too budget constrained to buy the
| brand name product.
| blacksmith_tb wrote:
| Sounds great, but are there actual businesses who will come to
| your home and do an install, or do you need to to become a mad-
| scientist electrician and DIY? I got quotes on getting an LG
| system a few years ago and it was 4X these prices (also for me
| a problem is that my 'ancient' panels from 2013 use a single
| inverter instead of microinverters, so if I touch the system I
| have to replace it all). I keep hoping there will be a bunch of
| small businesses electrifying everything, I'd love to see -
| good, practical, safe - EV conversions driving around too, but
| it just doesn't seem to be materializing.
| duffpkg wrote:
| All of the quotes and interactions I had with the local solar
| installers were reminiscent of the used car lot if not
| outright fraud. I was able to do what was permissible myself
| and a regular licensed electrician did the rest. The
| equipment is UL listed. There was some learning curve but I
| found the diysolarforum.com to be a pretty good resource to
| learn what I didn't know. I ran the whole setup standalone
| for about 6 months before switching the house over to it. The
| only problem that happened was a loose battery cable
| connection which the BMS and inverter alerted to and handled
| correctly.
| GaggiX wrote:
| What voltage are you running your solar strings at? I was
| wondering what would happen if the loose cable was a cable
| from the solar panels instead of the low voltage battery.
| duffpkg wrote:
| The panel strings are at ~500v so there are safety,
| fusing and grounding considerations. Pretty common
| electrical equipment and cable is rated for use at 600v.
| There are special locking water resistant connectors for
| solar panels called MC4.
| GaggiX wrote:
| Are the hybrid inverters you are using be able to detect
| arc faults (in series) from the strings? Running 500V DC
| is probably by far the most dangerous thing in your
| setup, fortunately your solar panels are mounted on the
| groud.
| cyberax wrote:
| If you want a DIY-friendly option, it's best to look
| towards DC optimizers. They are installed on each panel
| and they provide a steady 48V output. They also do MPPT
| tracking on the panel level, so you get the best possible
| performance if you have some shading.
|
| Unlike microinverters that are notoriously unreliable, DC
| optimizers so far have excellent long-term reliability.
| Ayesh wrote:
| > do you need to to become a mad-scientist electrician and
| DIY?
|
| I did my own a couple years ago, and it worked quite well on
| the first go. I got someone else to build the LiFePo4 battery
| pack (16 CATL cells for 48v with a JK BMS).
|
| It was fairly easy to build. Mount panels on the roof, and
| wire everything (PV, battery, grid electricity if you want
| it, and the output) to the inverter. I added some extra steps
| to monitor usage and output, and a smart MCB. I also have a
| small shop that I can feed from solar power if the battery is
| almost charged and the sunset time hasn't reached yet.
|
| See if you quotation is to export electricity to the grid.
| Those kinds of setups usually require a certified company to
| do the installation (to make sure the inverter syncs with the
| grid), but for off-grid setups, you can definitely DIY.
| T3OU-736 wrote:
| You do not necessarily have to become all these things. There
| are whole communities around this sort of a thing - Will
| Prowse's DiY Solar Forum (https://diysolarforum.com/) is an
| awesome source for learning as an example.
|
| The setup you describe - lacking microinverters - I think
| there are options there short of wholesale replacement
| [disclaimer: I, too, am a self-taught in this field, and so
| am likely wrong in non-trivial ways]
| Aurornis wrote:
| > but are there actual businesses who will come to your home
| and do an install, or do you need to to become a mad-
| scientist electrician and DIY?
|
| A lot of the costs of a real install come from the
| permitting, doing proper upgrades (you might need a new
| electrical panel), the warranty, the labor, and other costs.
|
| Every time I browse the DIY solar forums it feels like I see
| 1 person doing things by code for every 10 people cutting
| corners or playing loose with the rules. YMMV, but take the
| DIY cost estimates with a huge grain of salt.
| denkmoon wrote:
| Some people cold knocked on my dad's door and 3 weeks later
| he's got a wall of batteries in the garage. Rural Australia.
|
| So yeah, there are businesses that'll do it.
| ozim wrote:
| In place where I live you do that and they will rip you off
| good time.
|
| Better to DIY or at least do really good market research
| first.
| kkfx wrote:
| Well, here, France, LFP batteries now cost MUCH MORE than just
| three years ago (final customer price) and... ~1000EUR per kWh,
| while just 3 years ago they was a bit less than 700EUR per kWh,
| the battery alone (with BMS etc) but we also need an inverter
| witch as well is not much more expensive and I talk about self-
| assembled systems, here legal, but not legal in large slice of
| the EU, because retail price of a complete installed system by
| some p.v. companies are so high that there is no economical
| reason to install them.
|
| My system is 5kWp/8kWh @11.500EUR three years ago, it would be
| now a bit different (400V batteries instead of 48V and a hybrid
| inverter instead of a p.v. string inverter AC coupled with a
| battery inverter) @~ the same price due to a single inverter
| and slightly cheaper p.v. modules (@~100EUR for a 415Wp). If
| done by third parties the cheapest proposal back than was
| ~30.000EUR. At this prices given current electricity prices and
| local grid stability it's a nonsense, it's even cheaper a
| diesel generator.
|
| I know prices in China are FAR lowers, and I've read also on
| far lower Thailand prices, but compared to local cost of life I
| can't quantify how much.
| MichaelNolan wrote:
| When you say $89/kwh, are you talking about just cells, or
| assembled packs? I'm just about to buy a 5kw Lifepo4 server
| rack battery from EG4 for a diy project. It's closer to
| $220/kwh
|
| This is what I'm planning to buy, but you know something better
| I'd love to take a look.
| https://signaturesolar.com/eg4-lifepower4-lithium-battery-48...
| duffpkg wrote:
| It would be for the completed battery units with BMS. You
| would have to install the batteries into the battery cases.
| It is a bit tedious but it was otherwise straightforward. The
| batteries are extremely heavy.
|
| I have always had good experiences with signature solar. My
| inverters are EG4 and I am very happy with their product
| after trying A LOT of others. I think the primary reasons for
| the price difference is that you are purchasing US inventory
| (it's already here), it's preassembled and warrantied as a
| unit, they provide pretty decent support and their battery
| packs use 100ah cells instead of 280ah+ cells. So you are
| buying ~3x as many BMSs, connecting cable ($$$$) and cases
| for the same power.
|
| Their rackable units are not light but can be moved by a
| capable person without too much fuss. A fully loaded 280ah
| unit in it's case is over 250lb so you really need a lift
| cart or such. The 280ah units and now maybe 320ah are more
| economical.
| cyberax wrote:
| Do you know if these batteries be used as a replacement for
| batteries of a lead-acid UPS? I have a Tripp-Lite rack-mount
| UPS with an extension battery, but its battery has degraded
| and it can only sustain my computing load for 3-4 hours.
|
| It'd be great to replace it with an LFP battery.
| oezi wrote:
| Current European/German prices for home storage of 2-10kwh are
| at 400-500 EUR per kwh.
|
| https://geizhals.de/?cat=bmseswresp&sort=t&hloc=at&hloc=de&v...
| moffkalast wrote:
| So... about 30k for 60kwh to cover 30kwh daily use with solar
| charging, and probably another 10k for installation. Hmm yes
| super cheap, might impulse buy later.
| oezi wrote:
| Unlikely that you need more than 10kwh. You just want to
| cover morning and evening electricity consumption. During
| the day you recharge and consume directly.
| pshirshov wrote:
| > $89/kwh shipped/duty paid
|
| Sorry what? Currently I'm happy to buy 5 kWh units for EUR1300.
| Aurornis wrote:
| I've followed the super cheap Chinese battery options for a
| while. It's amazing how cheap they can be, but at the same time
| the number of early failure stories is alarmingly high. Getting
| a warranty exchange is hit or miss.
|
| It feels a lot like gambling. You might get one that works for
| a thousand cycles without issues. You might get one that fails
| after a week. You might be able to get a warranty replacement,
| or you might spend hours every week trying to make progress on
| a warranty claim without any luck.
|
| You're right that there's a lot of opportunity if you're
| willing to buy used panels, Chinese batteries, and do all of
| your own work. However, the cost of equipment is falling while
| the costs of labor are rising, which is why professionally
| installed systems are still expensive.
| duffpkg wrote:
| There is a lot of information on this on the
| diysolarforum.com but if you purchase name brand cells,
| CATL/EVE from a good supplier these are the same ones used by
| all industry. They have a very good track record. I do not
| advocate buying from any random seller on aliexpress. There
| are not any mass market non-chinese batteries available for
| sale. Virtually all solar equipment of any fashion is chinese
| made.
| Aurornis wrote:
| That's the forum I followed.
|
| The failures often came from BMS or other parts, too.
| There's a lot of focus on the cells, but people are buying
| whole packs with a BMS.
| Aurornis wrote:
| This blog post is all over the place. The 2030 price projections
| are taken from extrapolations of Lithium battery costs, but he's
| assuming Sodium chemistry batteries will take over and become
| ubiquitous at rock bottom prices. The first Sodium batteries
| barely became available within the past year.
|
| He's also treating batteries like the only component of the
| system. The associated charging, inverter, and physical structure
| components aren't going to follow the same downward curve. Those
| are fixed costs on top of the battery itself.
|
| Finally, there's a lot of vague futurist writing mixed in, from
| congratulating himself on predicting in 2017 that EV trucks would
| be a thing some day to something about the blockchain for
| coordinating power grids:
|
| > I think this is also an area where distributed ledgers with low
| energy requirements (so not Proof of Work but Proof of Stake)
| could shine by creating an 'trustless' system (meaning the system
| justs works, also if there is no 'trusted' party that plays the
| boss).
|
| This statement doesn't even make sense when you read it. He
| defines "an [sic] 'trustless' system" as meaning a system that
| "just works" which suggests to me that he doesn't really know
| what he's talking about but has been led to believe that
| blockchain is the future for everything.
|
| Fun read, but I didn't get much out of this article other than
| "prices are going down"
| SCUSKU wrote:
| As someone who knows little about battery technology I was
| interested and trusted the author. But once I read the part
| about blockchain PoW vs PoS it seemed so off base that it threw
| the entire article into doubt...
| Animats wrote:
| > This blog post is all over the place.
|
| Which is sad. He has something useful to say, but destroys his
| credibility by not focusing. Here's the "poster wall" of the
| organization he claims to head.[1] "Disciplinary convergence
| through creative story telling". For a much better summary of
| the subject, see the cover story in this week's Economist.
|
| OK, how cheap can batteries get, really?
|
| Well, the price of lithium dropped 80% in the last year.[2]
| Overproduction at the moment. Exxon has a lithium production
| unit, and they're expanding. New, large lithium mines under
| construction in Nevada, Sonora (Mexico), five new mines in
| Western Australia, Quebec, Zimbabwe... Plus, of course,
| recycling old batteries, a far more concentrated source than
| anything in the ground. Lithium supplies do not look like a
| problem. The prices do go wildly up and down because the price
| of raw lithium doesn't affect car sales much in the short term.
| That's normal behavior for minor commodities.
|
| This also means that sodium batteries will probably be
| unnecessary. This is good, because of the fire risk. For fixed
| installations and low end car, lithium iron phosphate is cheap,
| not subject to thermal runaway, and in most of BYD and CATL
| products right now. (APS, please get with the program and start
| shipping small UPSs with LiPoFe batteries so those things last
| 10 years.)
|
| Coming along next are solid state batteries. Huge hype, a few
| samples, and production cost problems.[3] Here's the
| manufacturing process at lab scale, at the Franuhofer
| Institute.[4] Works in the lab. Here it is at production test
| scale.[5] The IEEE consensus is that solid-state battery
| production technology is about 10 years behind existing
| lithium-ion production. With production in test everywhere from
| Shenzhen to Belgium to Maryland, progress is being made
| rapidly.
|
| This is the kind of process that gets cheaper as it scales up.
|
| Solid-state batteries are important because 10-minute charging
| is needed to increase consumer acceptance rates.
|
| Between solar and battery technology, fossil fuels are going to
| be crushed. Soon.
|
| [1] https://neonresearch.nl/poster-wall/
|
| [2] https://www.reuters.com/markets/commodities/lithium-
| producer...
|
| [3] https://spectrum.ieee.org/solid-state-battery-production-
| cha...
|
| [4] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j5SVrp8N-1M&
|
| [5] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_eZGuDaqZAE
| gpm wrote:
| > Well, the price of lithium dropped 80% in the last year.[2]
| Overproduction at the moment.
|
| ...
|
| > This also means that sodium batteries will probably be
| unnecessary.
|
| If we're _overproducing_ this doesn 't follow. Lithium prices
| will rise back to the price of production. I'm not an expert
| but quickly glancing at the futures market and it looks to me
| like there is only a small rebound predicted ($13.30 ->
| $17.00/contract over a few years, highly illiquid market so
| take prices with a grain of salt) so the actual story might
| be "lithium production has become much cheaper".
|
| It also doesn't really matter if you're trying to estimate
| "it will cost at most this" by looking at sodium ion
| batteries. I don't think the author really cares if the
| batteries are sodium or lithium based, just that they don't
| cost more than sodium based batteries would cost.
|
| > This is good, because of the fire risk
|
| One of the selling points for Sodium ion has pretty
| consistently been that they are non-flammable. Admittedly
| this is a function of the electrolyte they use and not a
| fundamental property of sodium vs lithium, so it might change
| in the future, but I don't believe it has/it is in
| anticipated to?
| dyauspitr wrote:
| Chinese manufacturing seems insanely advanced based on link
| 5.
| sanxiyn wrote:
| > The associated charging, inverter, and physical structure
| components aren't going to follow the same downward curve.
|
| I agree not the same downward curve, but it also has been on
| the downward curve, although different. Learning rate is rather
| a common phenomenon.
|
| Estimating the learning curve of solar PV balance-of-system
| (2018) estimates 11% learning rate for BOS compared to 20%
| learning rate for module.
|
| https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2018.06.016
| DaoVeles wrote:
| Narrow boundary analysis can be useful but problematic. The
| additional components is a great example.
|
| Remember a large part of your electrical bill is paying for the
| grid, not just the energy it transports.
| ck2 wrote:
| Except we are not going to have cheap batteries and solar in the
| USA and never ever cheap EVs
|
| Remember how tariffs were called "asinine" when the last
| administration did them?
|
| Next year tariffs will double the price of batteries and solar
| imports, except there's no domestic production to even compete at
| that high price.
|
| Oh semiconductors are going to double in price too in 2025, buy
| soon.
|
| https://www.theverge.com/2024/5/14/24156249/us-biden-china-t...
| philipkglass wrote:
| _Next year tariffs will double the price of batteries and solar
| imports, except there 's no domestic production to even compete
| at that high price._
|
| I agree that the tariffs are going to hurt adoption, but the US
| does have domestic battery and solar manufacturing. Tesla
| manufactures large quantities of lithium ion batteries in
| Nevada and Texas.
|
| First Solar (3 manufacturing sites in Ohio):
| https://www.firstsolar.com/About-Us/Locations
|
| Hanwha Qcells solar manufacturing in Georgia:
| https://apnews.com/article/us-solar-panel-plant-hanwha-qcell...
|
| Actually it's faster to link this report about existing and
| planned North American solar manufacturing:
|
| https://media-01.imu.nl/storage/sinovoltaics.com/14240/sinov...
|
| There's a lot of work in progress right now but also several
| operating plants.
| worstspotgain wrote:
| As a layperson, the first thing the title made me think of is
| "How safe can they get?" Let RESCI be the Risk of
| Explosion/Surge/Combustion/Inhalation. Here are some measures
| that are interesting to me that I can't really approximate when
| evaluating products:
|
| - Incremental RESCI when buying from the cheapest 25% of vendors
|
| - Incremental RESCI when drawing from the product population that
| shouldn't have passed QA
|
| - Incremental RESCI when buying on AliExpress or random sites
|
| - Incremental RESCI when dropping, hitting with a hammer, leaving
| in the sun, subjecting to a power surge
|
| - Incremental RESCI from living in a dense neighborhood where
| dense people are buying from the cheapest 25% of vendors on
| AliExpress, occasionally dropping or hitting with a hammer, etc.
|
| In the West, we have about a buck's worth of experience with
| residential electric service. By many measures, it's still much
| more dangerous than it should be.
| DaoVeles wrote:
| With a lot of new chemistry the risk of fire is greatly
| reduced. It seems to be an issue mostly with lithium based
| systems. Things like Iron or sodium based are much safer,
| energy density is also lower because of this but it is a
| reasonable trade off. Also tend to have much greater life time
| charge cycles. Potential to go tens of thousands of cycles
| rather than just a thousand or so.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| > an issue mostly with lithium based systems. Things like
| Iron or sodium based are much safer
|
| The iron battery you are thinking of is a lithium battery. It
| is not the lithium that is a fire risk; lithium ion batteries
| do not contain metallic lithium. In an LFP battery the
| phosphate-oxide bond is much more stable and not subject to
| thermal runaway compared with e.g. cobalt-oxide.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| "...this is also an area where distributed ledgers with low
| energy requirements (so not Proof of Work but Proof of Stake)
| could shine by creating an 'trustless' system (meaning the system
| justs works, also if there is no 'trusted' party that plays the
| boss)."
|
| What? This bit at the end has nothing to do with the thesis!
| _Carthago delenda est_ much?
| torginus wrote:
| Ladies and gents this is what standard-issue Silicon Valley style
| grift looks like (following in the footsteps of the great
| Kurzweil). Ignore basic physics, massage data so you can more
| credibly fit an exponential curve on it, and extrapolate a
| fantastic future for it.
|
| All this to underpin the grand illusion of capitalism that
| exponential YoY growth is sustainable to justify insane VC
| valuations. Which is even more perverse when all this is done in
| the name of saving the planet.
| lanstin wrote:
| Having a lot of cheap electricity is also a trope in an
| anarcho-syndicalist utopian paradise for all the people.
| pfdietz wrote:
| Which basic physics did he ignore?
| kkfx wrote:
| A small note: I have a domestic p.v. system with small LFP
| storage and well... It's ~3 years old and now the same battery
| capacity (8kWh) cost a bit less the THE DOUBLE, witch is ~9000EUR
| instead of a bit more than 5000EUR...
|
| Industrial battery prices are lowered, in China, definitively not
| here in the EU, and at this rates the expensive small UPS for a
| home, that's are such capacity, because to being semi-autonomous
| a typical home need at least 80-100kWh to avoid too deep DoD and
| support heating in new all-electric and very well insulated
| homes. And I talk about mild climate where there is enough Sun in
| the winter to have not the autonomy but at least margin also in
| December, January and February. Oh, and I talk about self-
| assembled systems like mine witch is legal here, but not legal in
| every countries, because retail prices for a complete systems
| installed by them are FAR more expensive, about THREE time more,
| enough to make the investment so expensive to be a nonsense.
| richardw wrote:
| I think this underestimates the benefits of focus and serendipity
| and new materials. There's a non zero chance that grid scale
| fixed batteries get made from things like sand or liquid metal or
| (insert cheap thing you can heat here).
|
| Claims of 10 euros/kwh, months of energy storage:
|
| https://thenextweb.com/news/startup-sand-battery-funding-pol...
|
| How big a battery can you make when it's made from sand?
|
| The trick with grid is that because you're building at scale, you
| can give the benefits to many in one shot and you can build it
| out of town. Think Australia's original big battery from Tesla in
| 90 days vs. messing with installing lots of little ones in
| houses, with all the maintenance, education and dangers that
| brings.
| epups wrote:
| > 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.
|
| For context, the global electricity consumption in 2019 was
| around 23 TWh [1].
|
| [1] https://www.iea.org/reports/electricity-information-
| overview...
| sholladay wrote:
| Lowering cost per kWh is great, but if power demand increases at
| about the same rate or faster, then the impact is minimal.
|
| Cost per bit of internet plans has also gone down a lot in the
| past decade, but you'd be forgiven for not noticing on account of
| all the new JavaScript, ads, and other website bloat.
|
| Using less exotic materials is exciting, though! Regardless of
| whether the cost feels different.
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