4-hour battery storage is cheaper to install than gas turbines all across globe

This entire article seems to be based on an assumption that the cost of batteries will go down 33% over the next 10 years because demand is so high, but costs of gas turbines will go up over the next 10 years because demand is so high.

Neither of these assumptions are based on anything other than "That's the number we had to put in to the model to get the conclusion we want".

I’d like to take a moment to praise the writing here. Rigorous, dense, and well-organized; communicative rather than coughing up tables of raw figures in prose form.

I’d refer to the source studies, but at $9,990 per region… Ms Pickerel’s overview seems plenty informative for me.

Regarding EMEA:

> Grid-scale battery storage costs are now decisively cheaper than gas peaking across the region. [and price will fall another 33% in the decade ahead]. This shift means storage is displacing open-cycle gas turbines on cost in every gas market across the region, marking a significant structural turning point for power system planning across both the Gulf and Africa.

The analyst’s bottom line:

> From Latin America to Asia Pacific, the combination of falling storage costs and world-class renewable resources is closing off the economic case for new gas peaking capacity, while long-term contracted renewables increasingly set the ceiling rather than the floor on power costs.”

Heady times! For all the gnashing of teeth about regulating our way out of combustion-based production—it’s ultimately superior technology that’s ripened to displace gas peaker plants, no arm-twisting required. “Not with a bang, but a whimper”…

Title should include that the battery is also installed all across the globe.

That seems fairly obvious, but afaik the problem is not bridging four hours, it’s bridging a cloudy week without wind in winter. For that gas currently seems cheaper

The "4 hour" is doing a lot of work here.

Put another way, you need the gas turbines for the two week dunkelflaute (winter doldrums). Given that you have the turbines already, when are batteries cheaper than running the turbines for a few hours every evening?

A more interesting question than the cheapest 4 hour solution. I think that answer might also be batteries soon.

> For onshore wind, continuous capex and opex improvements are expected to drive LCOE down 16% by 2060

What’s with the forecasts going as far out as 2060?? Given the scale of changes we’ve seen in just the last 10 years, looking forward 34 years seems absurd, and to still only expect a 16% drop in cost?

solve the two problems with datacenters with a single solution.

solar panels & batteries in the texas oil patch or sw or mexico... morocco or spain.. australia...

everything associated with datacenters does not pay tariffs. tech leaders could lead the way here and not only provide AI but also potentially take big steps towards solving the climate crisis.

certainly cheaper than putting panels in space. (do the math)

Have to drive the last gas turbine manufacturers out of business (less than a handful), guarantees we burn the ships and cannot turn back.

Come on - thats not solving all the problems that you buy GENERATORS for. 4 hour bridge is great - but emergency power or always on -- 4 hours is not enough.

Battery is load balancing not generation.