whatyareckon

By David Wojick, Ph.D. ~

The only technologically feasible way to make renewables reliable at in the foreseeable future is with massive amounts of grid scale batteries. Whether this is even remotely feasible depends on the cost and here things get truly strange.

On the one hand we have real utility reports of the capital cost of these big battery arrays. Battery systems that have actually been built. On the other hand we have projected capital costs, which are being used to defend the growth of unreliable renewables.

The real costs and the projected costs are wildly different. So different that the projected costs have the aspect of fantasy.

Let’s start with the reality. The EIA collected annual utility data on the cost of grid scale battery arrays. Their most recent report is “Battery Storage in the United States: An Update on Market Trends — August 2021”.

From 2013 to…