https://www.gridstatus.io/records/caiso?record=Maximum%20Bat...
It looks like batteries are now able to displace 100% of imports (which are mostly gas) for a period after sunset, eg here from yesterday:
https://www.gridstatus.io/live/caiso?date=2025-07-08
Even just a few weeks ago, imports would begin as soon as the sun set.
[1] https://reneweconomy.com.au/watershed-moment-big-battery-sto...
[2] https://electrek.co/2025/07/01/tesla-unveils-lfp-battery-fac...
[3] https://electrek.co/2025/06/25/ford-stands-by-controversial-...
For comparison a project in NZ recently finished cost 550 usd / kwh (which also includes site, etc)
I wonder if there will be a tipping point where people start defecting from the grid, making it more expensive for people still on the grid, giving them a bigger incentive to defect.
The "death spiral" scenario you mention is interesting - we're probably still a few years out from consumer storage being cheap enough to cause mass grid defection, but the economics are getting compelling fast. The portability premium and all the inverter/BMS/housing costs still add up compared to raw cells, but even those are dropping quickly.
They will also pull forward the economic tipping points for longer duration 8 hour to 10 hour systems needed to shore up ‘Round The Clock’ renewables use cases, which disproportionately stand to benefit.
I never understood the difference between standard systems that deliver the power over a 4 hour interval versus longer duration systems of 8 hours or more. The amount of energy delivered is the same, it is just delivered more slowly. What is the factor that makes delivering over 4 hours more cost effective than 8 hours?
With flow batteries there are definitely differences since the power and energy components of the system can each be scaled independently from each other. Ie need more total energy then just expand the amount of liquid electrolyte storage you have.
The hours designation is the MWh / MW i.e. how fast you can empty the battery into the grid at full throttle.
The economics comes in because batteries are expensive and you want to target the highest and lowest prices during the day, charging and discharging totally to maximize revenue via price abitrage. A 1 hour battery is going to be shaving the very peak prices of each day soaking up solar at noon and displacing expensive gas peaker plants in the evening.
As the battery MWh gets bigger, but not the ability to put it all on the grid, that implies you'll be charging and discharging for 4 or 8 hours each day which means you'll be paying and getting paid closer to the average prices in both directions.
It only works economically if the battery is itself cheaper (and/or there's more renewables pushing down prices for longer periods of the day)
I thought this was going to be the usual headline bait-and-switch where it would be revealed to only be the top source of electricity for like two hours around noon on a single Saturday, but I'm happy to have been wrong here.
And it’s got the cheapest electricity right. …. The cheapest right?
Solar seems set to overtake though both are predicted to continue to drop in price and the cheapest examples of both are currently the same price to build new as running existing nuclear or gas combined cycle plants.
Gahh 8k true up bill on top of paying 1k a month ?
adenta•7mo ago
dotcoma•7mo ago
https://solarwatersolutions.com/
metalman•7mo ago
some-guy•7mo ago
Scarblac•7mo ago
JumpCrisscross•7mo ago
We really don’t. Desalinated water is certainly more socially useful than a bunch of other uses of power that we don’t question.