Clean Power and Storage Wars

When people find out what I do for work, it’s not unusual for them to ask, “Are we doomed?” My usual response is, “We would be, if not for the amazing developments in renewable energy.” We know the people willing to destroy the planet for personal gain are still at it. The recently released documents acquired by Congress confirmed once again that the oil and gas industry is lying about pretty much everything and they know it. We now know that not only are the oil companies buying up all the politicians, they did the same with most of the major universities and were even working directly with major non-profits that were supposed to be helping to stop climate change. Imagine if we didn’t have alternatives to their products that were economically competitive? It would be like we could see the comet headed towards us and now it was just about waiting for it to hit. But we do have the tools. And it’s a great story. 

Renewables Providing 30% of Global Electricity

The new Global Electricity Review 2024 from the think tank Ember on the state of global renewable power generation is pretty stunning. “Renewables generated a record 30% of global electricity in 2023, driven by growth in solar and wind.” The report shows that this is a solar power story with the rapid increase in solar power generation, led by huge additions in China. 

“The renewables future has arrived. Solar in particular is accelerating faster than anyone thought possible. The decline of power sector emissions is now inevitable.”  Dave Jones, Ember

Solar power is the lowest cost form of power generation in history. This is what gives me hope. As Mark Jacobson argues, we don’t need miracles to solve the climate crisis, we just need to use the tools we have that work now and that also will save us money. 

I particularly enjoy these developments when I recall one of the first articles I wrote, back in 2014, that mentioned renewable power. I was reporting on CERAweek, the oil industry’s top conference, and noted some of the hostility towards renewables and facts from some of the executives. Paolo Scaroni, the CEO of oil company Eni, said that after beginning to use renewables, that Europe was realizing that renewables are “more a problem than a solution" and another executive said “using solar panels in Germany is like growing pineapples in Alaska.” Wait until he hears about solar in Minnesota.

Meanwhile, the Progress Playbook noted this week that, “Fossil fuels generated just 23% of the EU’s electricity in April.”

Were the oil CEOs lying then too or was it they just didn’t see what was coming? We don’t know. But despite their best well funded attempts to sell natural gas as the future of electricity, it didn’t work out as they planned. Lucky us. 

But The Sun Doesn’t Shine at Night...

Another popular argument about why solar power could never replace gas and coal power is that “the sun doesn’t shine at night” and thus the intermittent nature of solar and wind power meant that we would always need nuclear and fossil fuel as the baseload for the grid. What they were missing was the rapidly falling costs of energy storage. The cost of battery storage has followed a similar path to that of solar and it is continuing, “From July 2023 through summer 2024, battery cell pricing is expected to plummet by over 60%.” 

This development is having a big impact on the power systems in California and Texas but that is likely just the beginning. I’ve been reading Gregor McDonald’s energy and economic analysis for several years and continue to at his site Cold Eye Earth. He has been very good at predicting how the energy transition is going and will play out. In March he wrote the following about the impact that batteries will have. 

“So if you are prospecting for ways to kill natural gas, wind and solar are still your best candidates, but storage is going to be the dangerous assassin for energy transition overall.”  Gregor McDonald, Cold Eye Earth. 

And we can now see that happening. In California batteries are already playing a large role in the power system and are directly replacing gas power shown in this example reported by CanaryMedia. 

“For the past three Aprils, the CAISO gas fleet has fired up after sundown, pumping 9 to 10 gigawatts onto the system as solar generation disappears. In April 2024, gas only got up to a bit more than 5 gigawatts.”

This is another example of why I expect many people don’t see what is coming in the areas of renewables, storage and EVs. From one year to the next batteries replaced half of the gas power required in April evenings. That is rapid change. 

And it isn’t just those coastal elites in California who love batteries now. They are keeping the grid up and running in Texas too, as Texas continues to be a renewable energy success story. 

Global Battery Storage Capacity Additions (IEA)

Link: IEA

Batteries Will Be Much Better Soon

The speed at which batteries have ramped up to support the grids in Texas and California is impressive. Most of these batteries are lithium ion at this point. But that is unlikely to be the best long-term solution for storage. There are a lot of new ways to store energy, many that are lower cost and longer duration than what is currently available including various flow batteries, thermal batteries, compressed air, hydrogen and good old fashioned hydro storage. With the many competing solutions, a lot of storage companies are going to likely go bankrupt once the winning technologies take over. But right now it’s a bit of the wild west and everyone is working to build better energy storage and be the winning tech. And things are changing fast. Including from the current battery manufacturers. 

The next wave of EV batteries is also going to change everything. Range anxiety will be a thing of the past when batteries can provide 600 mile range on a single charge. CATL is the world’s leading battery company and they now claim they can do that. This is also a new technology (lithium iron phosphate) that is reportedly more environmentally friendly than the current lithium ion batteries. Charging times are also rapidly decreasing and CATL claims that these new batteries can charge 370 miles in 10 minutes.  

We are still in the very early stages of the evolution of electric vehicles. Range anxiety and charging times won’t be issues in the near future. In an Inside EV article this month, they quote one Chinese car company representative who states that, “the brand must figure out ways to attract consumers that don’t involve range or charging speed.” In the world’s largest auto market (China) where EVs are now 50% of new car purchases, no one is worried about range anxiety or charge times anymore. And yet that is all you see in the U.S. press about why people are not buying EVs.  

While CATL’s recent developments are game changing on their own, the announcements the company made this year about another new battery are an even bigger deal. In January CATL announced its “condensed battery” technology that has “an energy density of 500 Wh/kg” which is roughly double of what Tesla currently has in its top batteries and could even begin to be a solution for aviation applications. Meanwhile, there is various research that indicates all of these battery numbers could improve greatly in the future with new technological advances. 

The benefits of doubling EV battery density don’t end with EVs as it also essentially doubles the potential storage for virtual power plants (VPPs) based around vehicle to grid options. It also makes it more likely that batteries will be installed with rooftop solar. One of the fastest ways we currently have to improve our grid capacity is via VPPs. It looks very promising already as a solution and with the potential for a lot more cheap storage in the system, it is going to change how we think about energy. 

The Coming Wave of Electric Vehicles 

What is happening in China with electric vehicles is pretty stunning. China is the world’s largest auto market by far — in 2022 China sold 26.8 million vehicles, the U.S. sold 13.8 million and Japan was third with 4.3 million. So what China does in the auto markets is a big deal. In the first half of April, half of new cars sold in China were electric. This article notes that analysts hadn’t expected this rate of EV sales until 2028. 

And despite the headlines in the U.S. media saying that EV sales are disappointing, the facts don’t back up that narrative with Ford’s 2024 figures being one example. Note: It is true that Tesla has disappointing results but it is also quite understandable while Elon Musk fires whole successful divisions, while asking for a $50 billion bonus and spending his days tweeting support of the worst people in the world.

Ford’s EV sales surge is being led by the Mustang Mach-E, a crossover SUV, of which 14,482 were sold, an increase of 107 percent, as of April, compared to the prior-year period.

EVs are taking off rapidly despite the fact that in countries like the U.S., there are powerful forces working to try to stop this. However, much like with solar and batteries, too many people are believing headlines, car dealer lobbyists, and oil industry commentary about how electric vehicles are disappointing and most people don’t want them. 

The current EV situation reminds me of the renewables situation back in 2014 when CEOs at the top oil industry conference were mocking the technology that was about to give them the first real competition in the history of the industry. There is ignorance about what is coming in the world of energy and transportation. This observation from Kevin Williams, an analyst at InsideEV, sums up the misperception of the coming EV boom by many Americans: 

“Many of them believe China’s industries are not sustainable, and the cars it wants to foist on the public are cut-rate spyware machines designed to murder American citizens whenever the Chinese Communist Party flips the kill switch.”

After returning from that recent Chinese car show, Williams had a message for all of us. 

“In reality, it felt like it was the late 1980s again, when American manufacturers felt like they could sell whatever underdeveloped models its accounting department had cooked up to the public, and we’d just have to deal with it. Now that I’ve seen a glimpse of what’s going on in China, the Western manufacturers, particularly the American ones, don’t seem like they’re trying at all.”

I recommend reading the whole article. I think there is a case to be made that the American manufacturers are making a choice to slow-roll EV adoption, not just that they aren't trying. They will regret that. There is a good chance your next car will have 600 mile range, charge quickly and very possibly be hooked into the grid while parked where it will be part of a virtual power plant. And it will cost less than a traditional internal combustion vehicle. And it won't be a Tesla.

There is a lot of great news in the clean energy space. We have the tools and technologies we need to transition to clean energy and eliminate carbon dioxide and methane emissions. That said, it isn’t enough yet. Emissions are still rising, including the potent greenhouse gas methane, and climate impacts are getting impossible to ignore. We need to get our politicians to do a lot more, a lot faster.