America's grid battery revolution. 

In Texas one big factor was the winter freeze of 2021. The governor blamed it on renewables not doing as advertised,when a report came out that most energy the state had during that time were renewables. The reason was gas lines broke cutting service to millions.

One experiment happening in California now is the Virtual Power Plant. Individual homeowners with solar and batteries volunteer to provide their batteries during an emergency load reduction program event or ELRP. They are rewarded with $2/kwh for providing a part of their battery between the hours of 4 PM and 9 PM. All residences may choose volunteer, choose how much battery they will give, as well as whether they will participate in any particular event. It works out well for those that invested in batteries and should help prevent rolling blackouts during hot weather events.

Regarding solar, wind and battery storage in Texas, it is 100% that installing it is profitable. It's probably the best indication that the transition is actually going to happen because policy here is not driven by what is best for the environment.

At the school district that I work A private company installed huge parking lot solar canopies and they've recently installed huge Tesla storage batteries to back up the grid.

I work in Software for Powin Energy. We are building some of the worlds biggest battery systems in the USA, AU and Europe. Most lithium based systems are designed to provide power for 2-4 hours. The industry is getting good at spreading out renewable power over the day with these systems. Long term energy storage for seasonal usage is still a bit away.

Switzerland is starting to utilise electric car battery capacity to store excess generated power and return it back a off peak times. One advantage is that the batteries in most cars, most of the time are sitting doing nothing.

Just a reminder to those in the US, until 2030 you can get a tax credit of 30% on home battery installations. The credit is non-refundable, i.e. you can only use it to reduce your tax, not get it in cash. You should also check to see if there are credits or low interest loans available at the state level or from your utility.

Glad to hear all this news. I didn't realize battery storage was going so well

Didn’t notice you mention one of the great benefits of grid-level battery storage…quickly supplanting the need for peaker plants which could be dirty. Even if filled with non-renewable excess power, they may be filled from more efficient sources (ie. cleaner) avoiding inefficient peaker plants. Proud of the revolution in my Texas home!

This so encouraging. Love these updates.

Thank you very much for your work sir. Politicians should have a listen

I work for one of the world's largest solar module and battery storage manufacturer, here in the U.S., and 100% support Pres. Biden and the great work he and his admin. are doing to promote and help fund massive solar + BESS growth. We'll continue to see solar + BESS until ALL gas and coal are gone.

Well here's a daft idea:- Subsidised EV connection points at work places, shopping centres etc so that they can absorb the middle of the day glut of solar. If you have solar at home what you feed into the grid is deducted from what is put back into your car at work. Then when you drive home reconnect your vehicle to grid car and use it to reduce the peak load demand in the evening / over night. That way you are reducing the cost to the consumer and the number of batteries they need to buy. So daft it might just work.

Very true! In addition to the lobbying issue, if oil subsidies were eliminated and the playing field was leveled, we wouldn't be having this discussion at all.

This is great news. And will only get better as more LFP battery production expands, and then even more as the even cheaper Sodium ion batteries become more ubiquitous.

Thanks for updating me & everyone else.

I plan to retire at 62 in another country outside the US that is free, safe and very cheap with a high quality of life. I could fully just rely on only my SS if I wanted to when that times arrives but I'll also have at least one pension, a 403 (b) and a very prolific lnvestment account with my Abby Joseph Cohen my FA. Retiring comfortably in the US these days is almost impossible.

Storage is agnostic as to source. So as solar and wind is installed the arbitrage advantage will flip. That will accelerate the decline of fossil fuels as that happens. That is what California has shown and what some of the Texas plants are staring to show. Storage in near Urban areas are very susceptible consumer solar and associated VPPs so that part of the IRA will begin to play out more and more.

In Spain we have lots of molten salt storage, and much more could be installes. No need to import costly solutions.

Oil subsidies are at $US 9.000.000.000.000. (International Monetary Fund Numbers). So, instead of co2 pricing, why not remove the subsidies? This is more than $US 1.000 for every human on earth!

Plug in batteries are now starting to get to market in Europe. you just plug in the battery into a standard socket, connect a app and you are done. Power in/output is limited to 800W with a capacity of 2.5kwh. But these things mean no planning permits, and electricians install etc. and ppl can backup their own solar really easy. Prices are close to a tipping point. So where home solar really took off first now these home batteries can be installed in a day. If all homes with solar would install such small battery it adds up to a massive capacity. And because it is local it reduces the stress on the grid.

Thank you for making these videos! Your you-tube channel gives me hope for humanity.

Fossil fuel subsidies have increased by 31% in 2023 -2024 in the sun drenched country of Australia. Tax free Profit for international oil & gas corporations are ongoing, while Indigenous Aboriginal communities are prevented from installing renewable power systems on their reclaimed Homelands ...

Another great video well worth my time. Thank you Sir from us folks in Florida who appreciate a logical rational discussion of current issues

An idea for an episode: I live in the Portland Oregon area, and there's a hydro electric plant just up the Columbia River called Bonneville. (technically two plants) Ten glorious turbines in a gigantic room, the river roaring outside, yet none of them were operating during my visit. The guide explained that the plant shuts off the turbines when cheaper electricity is available from other sources. I couldn't imagine a scenario where hydro would be more expensive except maybe solar, and I'm not aware of any vast solar fields anywhere nearby. And not even one turbine running? ...but then I'm not an expert on the US Pacific Northwest power grid. Could you please take a look at the power economics of this area to find out how this seeming contradiction could be possible? It seems implausible that we'd be gushing out so much power that we'd have to shut down a hydro plant in order to cope. Thx!

Good to see coverage of this--it's depressing how many people seem oblivious to how grid scale storage is changing the energy landscape.

I live in the American southeast and inevitability I get to hear about all of these great advances taking place elseward. What I am looking at is the issue of structural (organizational) rigidity. Investor owned utilities (IOU) seem reluctant to promote technologies that challenge their bottom line.

Continue the excellent output you have provided to us "consumers" regularly. I look forward to your vlogs weekly. Thank you!

Such a basic electronics concept finally applied to the grid: capacitance.

Spot on! The UK needs to stop messing about with Nuclear future projects, and install wind onshore and Grid based battery storage. Also mandating all car parks and buildings to install solar PV if new or upgraded requiring planning consent. Suddenly moving power pricing from gas pricing to real cost!

In Australia, we're having a hamfisted go at a pumped hydro scheme, called Snowy 2.0, that is meant to have a 2GW capacity, for 16 hours. However, the tunnel boring machine for the headrace is stuck in some soft, then some hard rock, so we're now behind by 2 years, and overbudget maybe 4 x with it. This is throwing the whole idea of pumped hydro in Australia into doubt (mainly driven by the RW shock jocks and usual Murdoch & adjacent filth-spewers), even tho we have over 60,000 potential and feasible sites for projects, small and large. Even if only 20% of these were developed, by the time the big batteries we are installing have reached the end of their service lives, we'd have peak power storage for half a century or more.

Thank you excellent presentation, especially the charts you provide

We got rid of that gimmick of a PM in Australia, thank god, when the coal fired power station went out in Queensland the batteries in South Australia, 2000Klms away kept the lights on.

Spot on, Thank you!

I love your videos Dave, they generally leave me feeling more hopeful. With regard to this grid battery storage an important factor is the life of these batteries? and what is the situation for recycling the old ones and replacing them with new ones? This information is rarely included in these sorts of videos and it seems very important.

Remember way back when we just said this was going to happen? Now it's happening

Great video, keep them coming please

Excellent video, as usual. Thanks.

Excellent analysis - there’s some hope!

love your videos. but please distinguish between capacity (gwh) and power (gw)

i came for the topic, I stayed for the voice quality and clarity

Very good quality video update of situation; Thank You.

Excellent, as usual.

Here in Australia very few people had bought a battery as part of a solar installation. We did back in 2019 but our 10kw/h 34 solar panel installation cost around $14,000AUD but the 13kw capacity battery cost $12,000. The ROI on our solar set up was under 4 years but the ROI on the battery was about 15 years. This has started to change and we now have an electricity provider (Amber Electricity) where you can pay the market rate and they will even draw from your battery to the grid when there is a price spike. So you no longer need to have solar yourself but the battery can charge from the grid during the day when energy is often just a couple of cents per kw/h and discharge when the rates can be as high as several dollars per kw/h (albeit in short spikes). The depleted battery can even be charged back up again overnight when rates are low for discharge in the early morning peak before solar comes onstream. This is all algorithmically calculated by Amber so you don’t have to manage the process (however their system is a bit buggy at the moment in my experience). The ROI on solar has lengthened considerably because feed in tariffs are now typically 5c compared with 20c per kw/h when our system was installed and they are expected to end completely in the near future. Indeed, Amber actually have negative pricing on solar feed in and encourage customers with solar not to export to the grid at all so rooftop solar may wind up being wasted unless there is domestic battery back up installed in the near future. This does also take the ROI on a battery down considerably and there are presently some government incentives available for them. Indeed we are approaching a point where I might recommend a homeowner consider not installing solar at all but install batteries instead. The market is definitely moving in that direction too. Annoyingly though domestic battery set ups have remained stubbornly expensive to buy so the upfront cost is prohibitive for most people.

We've had solar panels on our roof since late 2017 (we're in Utah, USA). We're connected to the grid; so surplus goes to the grid and we pull from the grid when the panels don't generate enough to power our house. Over the course of time, we've sent twice as much energy to the grid as we've pulled. Our power company currently has incentives if you install a home battery with the ability for the grid to pull from your battery to balance the grid, as needed. The idea is that if the grid experiences an outage, supposedly there would always be enough power left in your battery to power your home through the outage. Unfortunately, the cost of the batteries is very high, even with the subsidy. At this point, we probably cannot afford to add a home battery. But, if the incentives can get somewhat better, we'd be pleased to join the program.

This is far more interesting than a football game

Another brilliant video presented so well

Very interesting! Can I ask - why are people using GW here, rather than GWh? Surely it's stored energy capacity that matters at least as much as power output?

Fabulous information.

Thank you!

Very positive news, thanks!

I’m looking forward to get some serious batterij at home somewhere 2027 It’s really getting cheaper here (Netherlands)

Just a feedback. Not sure if it happened in older videos as well but many graphics were vabeling today, which made them quite irritating to read.

thanks... channel is great

This is great news. Thanks 😊

Thank you. Excellent episode

Thank you for the commentary. I live in central Texas. There is a solar farm going in near me that must cover at least 1000 acres. I drove through on a county road and some fields are already covered in panels. From the road I could not see any storage systems. I am sure they are there.

Just saying we could also do nuclear power. Cuz one of the problems again is the intermittency problem with renewables. Now some of that is fixed with batteries/off grid storage. But having a good baseline would help and with the off-grid storage we could provide even more power more cheaply and the power companies can still make a big buck

Another super interesting, easy to watch, production. Hope to meet you in San Diego.

Thanks for another informative video, Dave. The Hornsdale battery is still charging on in South Australia, in spite of our foolish previous PM, Scomo. Saul Griffith, is our Australian champion of Electrify Everything, architect of the US, inflation reduction act. We now have a number of large scale battery projects including the Waratah Battery at Lake Munmorah, which will play a significant part in the closure of the Eraring coal fired power station, one of Australia's largest.

California has been using pumped hydro for energy storage since at least the 1970s.

Great video, thanks 🙏🏻

A battery that's not paired with wind/solar just reflects the wider grid generation - as wind and solar get even cheaper, and more is installed, they'll automatically use that Also, I wish you wouldn't quote capacity in MW. The amount they can deliver is MW, the much more important number is MW hours. A capacitor that can deliver 100MW for a second wouldn't be much use to the grid - 100MWh 1000MWh battery would be very helpful.,

Thanks for the information

Great to see the take-up on grid-scale batteries, Thanks, I really enjoy your videos

However, I still think much works needs to be done to make power storage a lot cheaper. While Tesla's Powerpack system works, it uses quite expensive lithium-ion batteries. I'd like to see a lot more power storage based on large-scale liquid air storage or molten salt batteries, since the power stored doesn't need to be "instant on" when storing power generated by renewables.

Love to see more batteries installed down here in AZ, where the sunshine is plentiful, and blistering... Also, I'd love to see a deep dive into this Sakuu Metal-Free Battery Cell that Sandy Monroe was looking at. This stuff looks legit

The Tesla Mega Plant Shanghi facility once at full capacity will produce 80 GWH of battery storage. 100 GWH of 4680's can produce 1.3 million cars. It's Lathrop Calif. facility produces 40 GWH at capacity. These 2 plants will make enough batteries for 1.56 million cars. Battery storage is growing at 150% yoy. Battery Storage is going to be bigger than the car business real soon.

Even if you charge battery from a coal plant, it still can be environmentally good. Coal plant following load may drop efficiency significantly, meaning more emissions per kW. If you smooth its load for 24h using batteries, you may actually reduce emissions.

thank you. keep going. hopefully you reach some minds

Very glad I came across this channel, nice to hear the practical and positive side of what we've done to help deal with climate change, along side the big picture stuff. Big picture is pretty bleak, because what we are doing isn't enough...but hearing this side of things makes me believe it's possible, we just need to get governments to actually take things seriously.

Love your content! But I wanted to chime in and mention how much I dislike the shaky graphics. They make me motion sick :(

When you started talking about pumped hydro I initially thought you were having a well deserved dig at the massive failure of the scheme in Australia called Snowy 2.0. The Lib/National Coalition govt (think Tories and just as bad) decided that solar and wind were just a diversion from their massive fossil fuel donors and thought they would kill it with this huge Snowy 2.0 Pumped Hydro. Was going to cost a tiny AUD$2 Billion and would be ready for use in 2022. It quickly doubled to AUD$4 Billion and would be ready in 2024 then it was AUD$12 Billion and 2026 and the latest is still AUD$12 Billion and the completion date is 2028 but they've run into a bit of a problem boring out the tunnels that are needed and in the last 6 or 9 months have managed to move about 180 metres. They are considering getting another machine to start boring from the finish line to try and meet somewhere in the middle. That AUD$12 Billion could have made some quite large wind farms, solar farms and a few large batteries. The Lib/Nats were voted out after nine *disastrous* years and have now decided that Australia with zero history of nuclear power is the way to go with 5 or 6 large Nuc plants and a couple of SMR which have yet to be proven and it'll get done in about 10 years. Some very clever people dis some estimates and came up with that in the long run this will cost the Australian taxpayer *AUD$600 Billion* to end up generating just *3.7%* of Australia's electricity needs. How much solar, wind and batteries would AUD$600 Billion buy? What's wrong with these clowns? 🤷‍♂

Excellent episode - BESS is clearly a huge growth novelty thanks.

After watching your flow battery video months ago, I went and invested in ESS. Redflow has the buildup issues like lithium batteries which made me go with ESS. The lack of fire risk, additional add-in costs (cooling systems), and scalability is why i think a flow battery system will take over the grid scale storage market.

Dave, How to explain the situation is difficult. People have limited understanding of all the facts. Including the solution's facts. Grid electricity needs a grid to millions of customers and daily cash flow, basically. With rooftop PV shading the hot roof and a BV with OVERSIZED battery parked 23hrs every day, then grid electricity is not needed every day the sun comes up. This terrifies the grid and generator owners. $TRILLIONS in assets and no cash flow. A little fossil fuel heating in winter weeks is nothing. Petroleum for the petrochemical industry and road building and the remaining ICE vehicles as they disappear will be a permanent part of our economy. Offgrid in the suburbs will be universal. The next 20years will be complicated.

Thakks Dave for the concise synopsis of the current state of charge. 🔋 ⚡ 🌞

SOLAR + BATTERY STORAGE is now Cheaper and Quicker to build and operate than any other power producing source. This means the cost of the electricity it sells will be the lowest. It also does not create Nuclear Waste (which is deadly for 10,000 years and we still don't know what to do with it). In Australia, solar panels with large battery storage systems are being built in one year and replacing coal fired power plants. This is lowering the cost of electricity, and being done all over the world.

He said champing at the bit rather than Chomping! He got it right! Much respect!!

I've wondered why we haven't seen "block mini-grids" starting to pop up yet in some select areas of the US: . Build a battery shed that can hold about 20 kWh per house on the block. . Connect the grid to the battery hut. . Get solar on all viable rooftops, which supplies the respective houses but runs also to the battery hut. By sharing batteries, the total number of batteries needed will be lower (because each household's peak usage will not align). The benefit is basically allowing the entire block to go "off grid" when necessary. I'd run the numbers a couple of years ago for the Bay Area, because of its very high electricity prices, and it was about break even then. It is probably now quite profitable to do this. The calculations include buying a small piece of land in the block for the battery shed. It seems like the challenges are: - organizational, i.e. talking to enough people on a block to make it viable, and - economic, e.g. how to make sure each home is paid an appropriate amount for each contribution the community battery and also pays the right amount withdrawn from the community battery. This seems like a great econ PhD thesis with a clear pathway to creating a major business. IMO, a place like San Francisco would be a natural place where community interest and organization could make it happen.

Thanks for this information at such a granular level.

Given the shown global expansion of battery storage in the GW range it‘s interesting that Lithium prices are not skyrocketing. Obviously the growing demand can still be met sufficiently.

Thanks again, you help me believe we can make through this mess

I’m a bit confused Dave. First off, I love your talks. I’ve been listening to you for some years now and sharing your convos w lots of my folks. Seems to me like there’s a huge difference between day to day energy needs to recharge batteries, run highly efficient appliances, heat pump technology and … Vs manufacturing : Automobiles Solar panels Wind turbines Airplanes And so on. This is a huge amount of energy that is not easily, if at all done with renewables. Embodied energy, as in the carbon footprint to manufacture all these elements is a huge unsustainable process. Unless I’m completely missing some simple math here. I actually think you and I should chat. I’ve many bought acres on the Olympic Peninsula in Washington state. We’re creating a “sustainable” in air quotes, beautiful farm with geo- benched green houses. Solar / battery systems, I could go on for hours / days….. Crazy times for sure. So few people seem to actually have a clue as to what’s actually coming down w the carbon footprint, crazy wars, etc… It seems like you already know most / perhaps, of this.

Thanks for the battery storage education. Very interesting

Don't forget the heat/cold storage (hot water, sand). It's not used much and it has low capacity (in total) but should be used more because of its simple technology and simple recycling.

This is a great part of why I own Tesla stock.

The ease (and glee?) with which you have just sounded the deathknell for the hydrocarbon cabal is pretty astounding.😍

We installed two Powerwall-2 batteries in 2018 to complement our 2012 installed 13.2 kW solar PV system, and can say unequivocally that it has been successful well beyond our expectations, and enabled us to operate as a microgrid for 8+ months of the year, while exporting our excess solar energy back to grid via net metering. We live in all electric home with electric heat pump and heat pump water heater and also charge our two EVs off our solar powered roof. No fossil fuel sources needed to energize our home and transportation.

Texas demonstrates exactly what one would expect from the homeland of big oil. Even so the news is very good. For those of us still interested in domestic battery installation, the potential - largely untapped as yet-to turn domestic solar generators into a significant force in the energy revolution, the investment ploughed into new technologies on grid scale facilities should be paying dividends in people's homes. Prices are eye-wateringly high and competent installers are few and far between. A revolution is called for in training of engineers and incentives offered to the cooperative organisations of micro generators online. Perhaps a hidden influence here is the potential threat to existing power generators from the sudden loss of revenue if hundreds of thousands of people could not only generate but manage their own supply.

Why is Sabine Hossenfelder telling people LFP batteries don't exist yet? Comes as a surprise to me, I'd better go check my ev is real or just an illusion.

I guess this is all kind of good news, but as someone who's been following this stuff for years it's kind of bewildering that all this is being done with li-ion batteries. You would *think* that some less energy dense but inherently cheaper to manufacture technology would have come along by now and started to eat into a chunk of this market. Can't help but think all these energy dense li-ion batteries would have more decarbonization bang for the buck displacing ICE engines in cars, busses, etc., with some sort of flow battery or compressed air technology filling the niche for grid balancing where space is not at all a concern.

I think grid scale storage will only be a small part of the storage picture - instead there should be more focus on local storage - Get grid tied storage like the enphase P5 system. They would be useful to reduce peak demands from each building and therefore reducing grid infrastructure costs. As more and more households increase power usage (EV's, Heatpumps, etc) and density of cities continues to increase in older areas with less infrastructure - it will be more critical to have local power for outage coverage and for reducing peak demands.

Transmission and distribution of electricity is a large component in end user prices. Present planning seems to rely on increasing the amount of transmission to support wind and solar. One idea worth exploring might be to locate battery storage close to the locus of consumers rather than at the generator. This would reduce the stress on the transmission lines. Maybe it will be economic to see battery storage being installed at old coal power stations, trickle charged by existing transmission lines.

In Australia we have wasted over 25 years of implementing renewables. The absolute non belief and total denial in climate change by the right wing coalition governments at both State and Federal level has left the country years behind where it should be. There has been a shift in right wing thinking by some but a hardening by others. The ones who have moved have mainly done so on cost, not global warming. The non movers are still claiming that there is no such thing as global warming as they watch their fields and forests burn. As it is becoming global overheating. Having said that there is one rightwing politician who is an avid supporter of the need to decarbonise. He has just been appointed by the now, left wing federal government as hair of the Climate Change Authority. A well accepted appointment. Some few years ago the NSW state government had a habit of selling every state asset they possibly could. They sold a coal power station to a privateer for $1M as it needed updating. The same power station, still without updating was valued at $750 million 2 years later and is invaluable to the state power network. The network which users paid to upgrade statewide and modernise for future use put in perfect order to sell. They sold half. We now find out that the new super network designed by the right wing government and built at vast cost to the consumer, was not done with wind or solar on the roof or anywhere else thoughts in mind. It will now cost even more than before to make it solar compatible. Looking at what is happening in Australia one would think that right wing governments across the world are a big stoppers of renewables. But we know this not to be so as a statement of fact. It must just be that Australian right wingers are stupid on a world regional basis.

Did some calculations and the (LFP) storagebattery will have a mayor role in the years to come. Believe it or not but this is actually the cheapest way to story energy at the moment. This will get an afterburner the moment SIO-ion is commercialised. Did check with CatL and Hina and they are working hard on it…. Storage is now

Something that would be a great addition to battery storage and wind/solar generating sites would be fly wheels to provide reactive power. It's not a big deal now, but will be more important as more turbines are disconnected from the grid. Or maybe we'll see smaller fly wheels deployed per neighborhood or in inustrial districts to absorb the frequency disruption by big and/or many motors.

Interesting , Thank You . We must use what Works

Only thing needed to solve duck curve is hourly pricing for energy. Open market will then handles the rest.

Suggestion: in the Battery vs Stored water chart you should include the water trend line too. Explain that the "flatter" line means it is growing slower. All of this solar and water storage in the US is great! The US specifically need to add East West high voltage transmission lines to get the power from the deserts and oceans to people farther away.