Energy storage is following the solar curve in dropping prices from manufacturing - we've seen this for at least 5 years now...nothing new there.
The funny thing about it - it isn't clear where the value really accrues. There is continual downward pressure on prices for the full system but there hasn't been particularly good ways to recoup value from the utilities models and bidding as merchant power is super tough to make money.
If the hope that electricity prices keep going down from cheap solar (speculating future energy prices is a losers game) it only gets more difficult to install ESS systems. I.e. any system you install now will be out performed by the system in 2 years especially if you are in a bidding market.
As someone who builds projects and invests in climate tech companies I find the prices coming down great and open up more opportunity but I just don't know where the value accrues. For example Fluence going public -- they make money on the control & IT side of the system. So any price decrease in the hardware (Siemens) will likely be recouped from Fluence in service costs.
TL,DR; Glad the prices are coming down - I'm not entirely sure the narrative is right about where this goes and the gatekeepers (utilities + regulators) haven't fully bought in - ie compensation for the value proposition from ESS hasn't been proved en masse. Federal policies might be the finger on the scale that really continues to keep the growth of ESS + solar/wind going strong.
We are going into uncharted waters for grid balancing though and I suspect the utilities will recoup money through system upgrade payments defrayed across the ratebase.
The funny thing about it - it isn't clear where the value really accrues. There is continual downward pressure on prices for the full system but there hasn't been particularly good ways to recoup value from the utilities models and bidding as merchant power is super tough to make money.
If the hope that electricity prices keep going down from cheap solar (speculating future energy prices is a losers game) it only gets more difficult to install ESS systems. I.e. any system you install now will be out performed by the system in 2 years especially if you are in a bidding market.
As someone who builds projects and invests in climate tech companies I find the prices coming down great and open up more opportunity but I just don't know where the value accrues. For example Fluence going public -- they make money on the control & IT side of the system. So any price decrease in the hardware (Siemens) will likely be recouped from Fluence in service costs.
TL,DR; Glad the prices are coming down - I'm not entirely sure the narrative is right about where this goes and the gatekeepers (utilities + regulators) haven't fully bought in - ie compensation for the value proposition from ESS hasn't been proved en masse. Federal policies might be the finger on the scale that really continues to keep the growth of ESS + solar/wind going strong.
We are going into uncharted waters for grid balancing though and I suspect the utilities will recoup money through system upgrade payments defrayed across the ratebase.