Green, ethical, energy issues in the news

Coastalwatch

Further progress on Energy storage in Germany. Being underground then at least there shouldn't be too many objections from Newt and bird enthusiasts.

Ooops, forgot about possibility of evicting bats!

Eneco, Corre Energy partner on compressed air energy storage project

The project is based on four salt caverns in the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia with a total storage capacity of at least 500 MW. Eneco will operate, co-develop, and finance the project through its German subsidiary LichtBlick, one of Germany’s largest green energy suppliers. Cavern construction is already underway, with handover of the first two expected in early 2027.

https://www.pv-magazine.com/2024/01/29/eneco-corre-energy-partner-on-compressed-air-energy-storage-project/?utm_source=Global+|+Newsletter&utm_campaign=4520a8f249-dailynl_gl&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_6916ce32b6-4520a8f249-159300013

Martyn1981

Been pondering the info I posted to CW a while back on Tesla Megapack prices, due to an interesting bit from the Tesla earnings call. And then today saw lots of news and references to batts, so here goes a hotch potch of info, ponderings and musings.

Firstly back to the earnings call. Tesla announced that their energy storage deliveries last year had doubled on the year before, but their profits had quadrupled. That started me wondering about the potential for even faster falling battery costs. But of course correlation doesn't necessarily mean causation, and the greater increase in profits could simply be down to falling OPEX as the factory (not even at 50% capacity) ramps up. But seeing that Megapack prices have been reducing, I think it's a reasonable to assume battery costs are falling .... fast?

Next, there's also lots of news (regularly) about new lithium finds, lithium potential etc etc.. I think the somewhat nonsense claims that 'there's not enough lithium in the World ...... blah blah blah', are now exhausted. The issue was always one of lithium production needing to ramp up, not the limits of availability. And the advances in sodium-ion batts, appear to be acting as a price control on lithium - they may never account for significant scale, but their existence prevents lithium prices rising too high, as sodium can step in, if needed.

Now today I saw this 'fun' article, with great charts to show how fast the production of batts is growing:

The Rise of Batteries in 6 Charts & Not Too Many Numbers

Battery demand is growing exponentially, driven by a domino effect of adoption that cascades from country to country and from sector to sector. This battery domino effect is set to enable the rapid phaseout of half of global fossil fuel demand and be instrumental in abating transport and power emissions. This is the conclusion of RMI’s recently published report X-Change: Batteries. In this article, we highlight six of the key messages from the report.

...... and chart 2 looking at falling prices, leads me nicely to something doing the rounds on RE/EV news sites, and that's Tony Seba, apparently getting it wrong! He is famous for his somewhat outrageous predictions when it comes to disruptive technologies, and the vastly shorter timelines he regularly suggests for such technologies to reach the big time.

But 10yrs ago he suggested that battery costs would reach $50/kWh by 2027, and he's now 'admitting' that he may have got the year wrong.

World’s largest EV battery maker set to cut costs in half by mid 2024

The faster that battery costs fall, the faster that they will be deployed, and that will mean larger production, which will lead to falling prices ...... which leads to faster deployment, and so on, and so on. All of this will feed into RE deployment and energy prices, BEV costs, and the steady decarbonization of our energy.

Netexporter

There's significant overcapacity in battery manufacturing and the price of lithium is heading back to about a quarter of its peak price, so I think a drop in battery prices is a pretty safe bet.

Netexporter

Looks like $50/kWh may come this year:

Tony Seba's 2027 battery prediction is about to happen 3 YEARS EARLY! (youtube.com)

Coastalwatch

Martyn1981 said:

Been pondering the info I posted to CW a while back on Tesla Megapack prices, due to an interesting bit from the Tesla earnings call. And then today saw lots of news and references to batts, so here goes a hotch potch of info, ponderings and musings.

Firstly back to the earnings call. Tesla announced that their energy storage deliveries last year had doubled on the year before, but their profits had quadrupled. That started me wondering about the potential for even faster falling battery costs. But of course correlation doesn't necessarily mean causation, and the greater increase in profits could simply be down to falling OPEX as the factory (not even at 50% capacity) ramps up. But seeing that Megapack prices have been reducing, I think it's a reasonable to assume battery costs are falling .... fast?

Next, there's also lots of news (regularly) about new lithium finds, lithium potential etc etc.. I think the somewhat nonsense claims that 'there's not enough lithium in the World ...... blah blah blah', are now exhausted. The issue was always one of lithium production needing to ramp up, not the limits of availability. And the advances in sodium-ion batts, appear to be acting as a price control on lithium - they may never account for significant scale, but their existence prevents lithium prices rising too high, as sodium can step in, if needed.

Now today I saw this 'fun' article, with great charts to show how fast the production of batts is growing:

The Rise of Batteries in 6 Charts & Not Too Many Numbers

Battery demand is growing exponentially, driven by a domino effect of adoption that cascades from country to country and from sector to sector. This battery domino effect is set to enable the rapid phaseout of half of global fossil fuel demand and be instrumental in abating transport and power emissions. This is the conclusion of RMI’s recently published report X-Change: Batteries. In this article, we highlight six of the key messages from the report.

...... and chart 2 looking at falling prices, leads me nicely to something doing the rounds on RE/EV news sites, and that's Tony Seba, apparently getting it wrong! He is famous for his somewhat outrageous predictions when it comes to disruptive technologies, and the vastly shorter timelines he regularly suggests for such technologies to reach the big time.

But 10yrs ago he suggested that battery costs would reach $50/kWh by 2027, and he's now 'admitting' that he may have got the year wrong.

World’s largest EV battery maker set to cut costs in half by mid 2024

The faster that battery costs fall, the faster that they will be deployed, and that will mean larger production, which will lead to falling prices ...... which leads to faster deployment, and so on, and so on. All of this will feed into RE deployment and energy prices, BEV costs, and the steady decarbonization of our energy.

It's mind boggling how accurate Tony Seba's forecasts have been on various topics when it comes to disruption and none more so than in the case of Battery's, be they Li Ion or LiFePo etc. The fact it was three years late makes it even more remarkable. One might be forgiven thinking that had it not been for China's involvement in the development and manufacture of them that 2027 may still have been optimistic. But here we are and I can only imagine that legacy auto makers must be wondering how they can compete in the years ahead let alone achieve returns on the capital investments made in those ICE models newly introduced and even worse, those still to appear.

On the plus side does it bode well for those of us with older EV's whose battery's could need replacing in a few years time?

Martyn1981

Coastalwatch said:

Martyn1981 said:

Been pondering the info I posted to CW a while back on Tesla Megapack prices, due to an interesting bit from the Tesla earnings call. And then today saw lots of news and references to batts, so here goes a hotch potch of info, ponderings and musings.

Firstly back to the earnings call. Tesla announced that their energy storage deliveries last year had doubled on the year before, but their profits had quadrupled. That started me wondering about the potential for even faster falling battery costs. But of course correlation doesn't necessarily mean causation, and the greater increase in profits could simply be down to falling OPEX as the factory (not even at 50% capacity) ramps up. But seeing that Megapack prices have been reducing, I think it's a reasonable to assume battery costs are falling .... fast?

Next, there's also lots of news (regularly) about new lithium finds, lithium potential etc etc.. I think the somewhat nonsense claims that 'there's not enough lithium in the World ...... blah blah blah', are now exhausted. The issue was always one of lithium production needing to ramp up, not the limits of availability. And the advances in sodium-ion batts, appear to be acting as a price control on lithium - they may never account for significant scale, but their existence prevents lithium prices rising too high, as sodium can step in, if needed.

Now today I saw this 'fun' article, with great charts to show how fast the production of batts is growing:

The Rise of Batteries in 6 Charts & Not Too Many Numbers

Battery demand is growing exponentially, driven by a domino effect of adoption that cascades from country to country and from sector to sector. This battery domino effect is set to enable the rapid phaseout of half of global fossil fuel demand and be instrumental in abating transport and power emissions. This is the conclusion of RMI’s recently published report X-Change: Batteries. In this article, we highlight six of the key messages from the report.

...... and chart 2 looking at falling prices, leads me nicely to something doing the rounds on RE/EV news sites, and that's Tony Seba, apparently getting it wrong! He is famous for his somewhat outrageous predictions when it comes to disruptive technologies, and the vastly shorter timelines he regularly suggests for such technologies to reach the big time.

But 10yrs ago he suggested that battery costs would reach $50/kWh by 2027, and he's now 'admitting' that he may have got the year wrong.

World’s largest EV battery maker set to cut costs in half by mid 2024

The faster that battery costs fall, the faster that they will be deployed, and that will mean larger production, which will lead to falling prices ...... which leads to faster deployment, and so on, and so on. All of this will feed into RE deployment and energy prices, BEV costs, and the steady decarbonization of our energy.

It's mind boggling how accurate Tony Seba's forecasts have been on various topics when it comes to disruption and none more so than in the case of Battery's, be they Li Ion or LiFePo etc. The fact it was three years late makes it even more remarkable. One might be forgiven thinking that had it not been for China's involvement in the development and manufacture of them that 2027 may still have been optimistic. But here we are and I can only imagine that legacy auto makers must be wondering how they can compete in the years ahead let alone achieve returns on the capital investments made in those ICE models newly introduced and even worse, those still to appear.

On the plus side does it bode well for those of us with older EV's whose battery's could need replacing in a few years time?

The learning curve (often called Wright's Law) for batts and solar PV is incredibly high, at about 20%. So with each subsequent doubling of production capacity, costs fall ~20%.

I seem to remember the world heading for a PV cell cost of about $0.30/Wp, many years ago, when I was following this with amazement. Now I'm seeing references to €0.09/Wp, so around $0.10/Wp.

If China keeps installing vast amounts of PV each year, about half of the global rollout, and we see battery (and lithium) production scaling fast, then it all augers well for the RE, BEV, HP future. I can't help thinking about the studies and reports from Mark Jacobson and his team at Stanford University -  5+ years ago they showed that the existing technology was adequate and cheap enough for the world to move to clean energy, at a lower cost than business as usual. So each time costs fall, it only gets better.

[Hopefully the massive inflationary impacts from the higher FF gas price on manufacturing, transport and energy, that's hitting new energy generation, such as wind and nuclear, will teach us the importance of moving away from FF's as fast as possible ...... if only for the money!]

Netexporter

Another interesting presentation on battery costs and performance:

The Rise of Batteries in Six Charts and Not Too Many Numbers - RMI

I like a nice graph, me.

Coastalwatch

An eye catching headline and given Ethiopias sunny climate one could imagine renewable energy being available in abundance to cover all their energy requirements. Reckon they'll need a few battery's to assist with that then.

Ethiopia to ban importation of non-electric cars

APA-Addis Ababa (Ethiopia) The Ethiopian Ministry of Transport and Logistics on Tuesday announced that it will not allow vehicles to enter into the country unless they are electric ones.

The ministry made the announcement while it presented a six-month performance report to the Urban Development and Transport Standing Committee in the House of People’s Representatives (Ethiopian Parliament).

https://apanews.net/ethiopia-to-ban-importation-of-non-electric-cars/

Magnitio

Coastalwatch said:

An eye catching headline and given Ethiopias sunny climate one could imagine renewable energy being available in abundance to cover all their energy requirements. Reckon they'll need a few battery's to assist with that then.

Ethiopia to ban importation of non-electric cars

APA-Addis Ababa (Ethiopia) The Ethiopian Ministry of Transport and Logistics on Tuesday announced that it will not allow vehicles to enter into the country unless they are electric ones.

The ministry made the announcement while it presented a six-month performance report to the Urban Development and Transport Standing Committee in the House of People’s Representatives (Ethiopian Parliament).

https://apanews.net/ethiopia-to-ban-importation-of-non-electric-cars/

Ethiopia has a variety of renewable energy: hydro, solar, wind and geothermal. Kenya has a similar mix. Both countries see huge environmental and financial benefits of avoiding fossil fuels. It would be good if both countries could do more to stop deforestation as well.

gefnew

London mayor's group solar panel scheme 'quietly shelved' - Tories - BBC News
Solar together group and the same stories about bad workmanship .