http://www.americanvanadium.com/grid-energy-power-storage.php

(Mod: This is kind of an advertising post, but it does contain some good info, so it’s getting a pass. I wouldn’t take that as site advice to invest in vanadium. There are some other very promising storage technologies as well.)

Change do not come in a linear fashion. So expect a lot of change in storage over the next couple of year. Panasonics see a lot of money in the market of they wouldn’t be jumping in now.

So how long does the system take to pay for itself? Depends on the cost difference between the low (storage) and high (use) electric costs. Across top. And the total system cost/Kwh (vertical). Table is number of cycles.

$0.60 $0.50 $0.40 $0.30 $0.20 $0.10
600 1000 1200 1500 2000 3000 6000
500 833 1000 1250 1667 2500 5000
400 667 800 1000 1333 2000 4000
300 500 600 750 1000 1500 3000
200 333 400 500 667 1000 2000
100 167 200 250 333 500 1000
50 83 100 125 167 250 500

Or if you say one cycle per day and 365 days a year, then number of years is
$0.60 $0.50 $0.40 $0.30 $0.20 $0.10
600 2.74 3.29 4.11 5.48 8.22 16.44
500 2.28 2.74 3.42 4.57 6.85 13.70
400 1.83 2.19 2.74 3.65 5.48 10.96
300 1.37 1.64 2.05 2.74 4.11 8.22
200 0.91 1.10 1.37 1.83 2.74 5.48
100 0.46 0.55 0.68 0.91 1.37 2.74
50 0.23 0.27 0.34 0.46 0.68 1.37

So from some markets the payback will be fast and still have many year of free use/savings.

But I’m betting the cost per kW is quite a bit lower now. I’ve seen claims (no proof) that EV batteries have dropped to around $400/kW.

Aqion is going into production this year and they are claiming that they will be able to hit $300/kW and >5,000 100% DoD cycles. That moves the price to around 6 cents per kWh.

(That price likely does not include non-battery components and profit.)

I’ll bet retail stores might be an early user of these systems. They are already installing solar and have significant late afternoon/evening demand. If they are saving money with solar and efficiency then they should be very receptive to other ways to please the bottom line.

But there’s no need to stop using them after they degrade to 80% of their full capacity. It’s not as if you have to drive your house any where. I presume they could be used until they’re next to useless and if they are no longer able to meet your needs you can just add new modules as required. This would really push down the cost per kilowatt-hour.

Of course, just dividing the price by kilowatt-hours stored ignores stuff like discount rates. Adding that in I very roughly get a price of about 16 cents a kilowatt-hour at $600 a kilowatt-hour assuming they go through one charge cycle a day. But that’s still worth it pretty much every where in Australia. And captial costs are lower in the rest of the developed world than Australia. Also they might cost less than $600 a kilowatt-hour and costs will come down in the future, although just how fast it’s hard to say.

OK, I’ll play.

I think you’re implying that Germany doesn’t get a lot of sunlight. Compared to Morocco, your’re right.

However Germany gets enough sunlight to make PV work and give them a nice hunk of their electricity needs. Affordable storage will mean that it will pay to put more panels on ones roof and avoid purchasing power for a lot more hours.

Plus, having in-home storage means that people can purchase cheaper off-peak electricity and us it during peak hours.

Two weeks from now there is an important solar tradefair in Munich where Panasonic and others will showcase their products. Perhapos we know more then…

How much does it cost?

The devil is in the details, but this is exciting for sure.

But not cost points, so guessing we are not all the way there yet.