Again in 2015, the battery storage trade had put in solely a fraction of a gigawatt of battery storage capability throughout the US. That yr, it set a seemingly daring goal of including 35 gigawatts by 2035. The sector handed that purpose a decade early this yr after which hit 40 gigawatts a few months later.
Prices are nonetheless falling, which may assist keep the momentum for the know-how’s deployment. This yr, battery costs for EVs and stationary storage fell but once more, reaching a report low, in keeping with knowledge from BloombergNEF. Battery packs particularly used for grid storage noticed costs fall even quicker than the typical; they price 45% lower than final yr.
We’re beginning to see what occurs on grids with a lot of battery capability, too: in California and Texas, batteries are already serving to meet demand within the evenings, lowering the necessity to run natural-gas vegetation. The outcome: a cleaner, extra secure grid.
AI’s power funding inflow
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The AI growth is difficult for our power system, as we lined at size this yr. Electrical energy demand is ticking up: the quantity of energy utilities provided to US knowledge facilities jumped 22% this yr and can greater than double by 2030.
However at the least one optimistic shift is popping out of AI’s affect on power: It’s driving renewed curiosity and funding in next-generation power applied sciences.
Within the close to time period, a lot of the power wanted for knowledge facilities, together with people who energy AI, will possible come from fossil fuels, particularly new natural-gas energy vegetation. However tech giants like Google, Microsoft, and Meta all have objectives on the books to cut back their greenhouse-gas emissions, so that they’re on the lookout for alternate options.
Meta signed a deal with XGS Vitality in June to buy as much as 150 megawatts of electrical energy from a geothermal plant. In October, Google signed an settlement that may assist reopen Duane Arnold Vitality Heart in Iowa, a beforehand shuttered nuclear energy plant.
Geothermal and nuclear could possibly be key items of the grid of the longer term, as they’ll present fixed energy in a means that wind and photo voltaic don’t. There’s an extended strategy to go for lots of the new variations of the tech, however extra money and curiosity from large, highly effective gamers can’t harm.