www.bloomberg.com
Batteries are everywhere these days: in our iPhones, toothbrushes,
vacuum cleaners, and electric cars. But batteries—really big
batteries—are just getting started.
The
idea is that grid-sized versions might be used to store excess wind and
solar power, smoothing out the peaks and valleys of the electricity
supply. There’s just one problem: Batteries are still way too expensive
when stacked up against cheap coal and natural gas. Today, less than
one-tenth of one percent of the world’s electricity spends any time in
a storage battery.
The
question is: How far will battery prices tumble, and will it all happen
in time to help wipe fossil fuels off the grid? That’s the subject of
the latest installment of Bloomberg’s animated web series, Sooner Than You Think, which examines some of the biggest transformations in human history that haven’t happened quite yet.
As we build more electric cars and electricity storage, the
cost of batteries plummets. Prices have dropped by half just since 2014.
If this learning curve continues, a widespread transformation of power
grids could begin within this decade. Cheap solar and wind power will
spread ever faster—now backed by batteries.
The
timing of new technologies is difficult to predict, but it may not be
long before the battery revolution becomes impossible to ignore.
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