Battery storage hits $65/MWh, a tipping point for solar(electrek.co)
electrek.co
Battery storage hits $65/MWh, a tipping point for solar
https://electrek.co/2025/12/12/battery-storage-hits-65-mwh-tipping-point-solar/
11 comments
Are they off by an order of magnitude or two?
A Tesla Powerwall2 retails for about $13k for 13kWh. No way the raw manufacturing costs are $65 for 77 of them.
A Tesla Powerwall2 retails for about $13k for 13kWh. No way the raw manufacturing costs are $65 for 77 of them.
So, in doing a bit of research from a link in one of the other comments, this is lcos, levelized cost of storage. I understand that to be roughly equivalent to the marginal cost of using it, including the capex divided over the unit volume. That same article uses $125/kwh as the capex, which is in line with your (and my) expectations of the cost to install.
$65/mwh works out to $0.065/kwh, so that makes sense. Effectively you can read this as "it costs $65/mwh to store and then consume electricity using these batteries"
$65/mwh works out to $0.065/kwh, so that makes sense. Effectively you can read this as "it costs $65/mwh to store and then consume electricity using these batteries"
You’re right, upon further review you can get budget Lifepo4 batteries shipped to your door from Amazon for as low as $75/kwh, which includes cables, a BMS, and various Bluetooth connectivity. So $65/kwh seems fairly reasonable for raw battery capacity in very large quantities.
But now it’s time to better understand why a Powerwall or other wall-mounted units are so much more expensive. I understand UL-listing costs, marketing, warranty, and other things are thrown in, but it’s $75/kwh versus $1000/kwh, a 13x difference.
If even at a $100/kwh price point all homeowners need to get 10-20kwh in batteries just to help peak shave the grid and save tons of money since batteries will be a fraction of the cost of grid power.
But now it’s time to better understand why a Powerwall or other wall-mounted units are so much more expensive. I understand UL-listing costs, marketing, warranty, and other things are thrown in, but it’s $75/kwh versus $1000/kwh, a 13x difference.
If even at a $100/kwh price point all homeowners need to get 10-20kwh in batteries just to help peak shave the grid and save tons of money since batteries will be a fraction of the cost of grid power.
Because Tesla wants their ~25-30% gross margin on Powerwalls.
$65/MWh is 6.5c per kWh, presumably to store and retrieve it once. I pay about 35c per kWh so there seems room for that to work for me although somehow in the UK everything seems to cost five times as much.
this is only the first serve from solar battery powered electric grid's.
sodium batteries will drop costs and eliminate* fire hazards.
ultra high power density supper caps are on the way, which put humanitys power requirements into the solved, category.
the key piece of data on batteries is that all matter in the universe is a charge carrier, and the full number of possible compounds and methods of storing energy is
the sum total of everything that is possible, in the universe.nothing less.
The chart is killing me: cuts off at 23:00
It's on about 5 websites now. Grrr!
It's on about 5 websites now. Grrr!
Vertical solar should expand production at both ends.
https://ember-energy.org/latest-insights/how-cheap-is-batter...