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PV, battery price drops key to utility storage future","solar-pv-battery-price-drops-key-to-utility-storage-future","article/solar-pv-battery-price-drops-key-to-utility-storage-future",{"_uid":557,"date":558,"tags":559,"editor":560,"content":570,"excerpt":578,"featured":50,"reporter":653,"_editable":657,"component":658,"seo_title":553,"categories":659,"visibility":666,"author_company":49,"featured_image":667,"seo_description":578,"author_full_name":49,"author_job_title":49,"formattedDate":672,"formattedArticleDate":673},"64b6f4ad-a33e-424d-835b-35160ea220ed","2016-07-20 00:00",[],[561],{"slug":562,"name":563,"content":564},"didi-bostock","Didi Bostock",{"job_title":565,"image":566,"bio":568,"linkedin":569},"Editor - Energy Transition & Economics",{"filename":567},"https://a.storyblok.com/f/287943243085208/512x512/2c5ca5c1a3/didi-bostock.jpeg","Didi is the Energy Transition & Economics Editor at Benchmark, covering a broad range of markets across the energy transition. His remit spans from downstream sectors such as BESS and EVs, through to midstream such as new technologies and battery production, to upstream critical minerals mining. He also leads on financial analysis across these supply chains, alongside in-depth policy analysis.\n","https://www.linkedin.com/in/didi-bostock-656342198/",{"type":571,"content":572},"doc",[573,580,585,590,595,600,605,610,613,618,623,628,633,638,643,648],{"type":574,"attrs":575,"content":576},"paragraph",{"textAlign":49},[577],{"text":578,"type":579},"The falling production cost of both crystalline silicon photovoltaic (PV) cells and lithium-ion battery cells has now reaching a tipping point for serious uptake in the large scale energy storage space, Benchmark Mineral Intelligence believes.","text",{"type":574,"attrs":581,"content":582},{"textAlign":49},[583],{"text":584,"type":579},"The ability to store intermittent solar power in an energy storage system that reduces reliance on the peak load situation in the grid system could not only work on an economic basis but also reshape the way we consume and use energy.",{"type":574,"attrs":586,"content":587},{"textAlign":49},[588],{"text":589,"type":579},"While the cost of PV cells were around $5 in 2004, they now stand at 36-38 cents owing to mass scale output and significant production improvements since the subsidyfuelled boom era of five years ago.",{"type":574,"attrs":591,"content":592},{"textAlign":49},[593],{"text":594,"type":579},"At the same time, the average production cost of lithium-ion cells has fallen from $1,300/kWh in 2005 to $350-450/kWh today without the mass scale production of the battery megafactories, the output from which is expected in 2018 onwards.",{"type":574,"attrs":596,"content":597},{"textAlign":49},[598],{"text":599,"type":579},"For the first time, both critical materials and devices needed to produce economical, low cost renewable energy will be available together at the same time and a low price. An abundance of low cost lithium-ion batteries produce by the megafactories under construction, Benchmark believes, will lead to adoption of the technology in utility storage devices over the next decade.",{"type":574,"attrs":601,"content":602},{"textAlign":49},[603],{"text":604,"type":579},"While other technologies such as vanadium flow will play a part in this space, the lower cost of lithium-ion systems means other battery designs are likely to have a niche role.",{"type":574,"attrs":606,"content":607},{"textAlign":49},[608],{"text":609,"type":579},"The adoption of solar as an energy source still faces many challenges, however, and is not likely to be a direct replacement for any of the major fossil fuels in the next ten years. Since Japan’s Fukushima incident, for example, Germany vowed to close all of its nuclear power plants by 2022, creating an energy supply gap that is presently being filled by other fossil fuels, namely coal.",{"type":574,"attrs":611,"content":612},{"textAlign":49},[],{"type":574,"attrs":614,"content":615},{"textAlign":49},[616],{"text":617,"type":579},"China has also recently vowed to invest $78bn to construct 110 nuclear power plants by 2030 both domestically and abroad to alleviate the situation and reduce its reliance on coal.",{"type":574,"attrs":619,"content":620},{"textAlign":49},[621],{"text":622,"type":579},"The challenge now for solar power is not the cost of production but the price of installing capacity together with an energy storage management system. This link in the supply chain is usually the bottleneck and slow to react.",{"type":574,"attrs":624,"content":625},{"textAlign":49},[626],{"text":627,"type":579},"The industry has come a long way, however, in the last six years, with US-installed solar PV capacity increasing from 1,000MW to 18,000 MW at the end of 2014, according to MIT. But the industry will need to reduce its balance of system (BOS) or installation costs to evolve to a terawatt energy source.",{"type":574,"attrs":629,"content":630},{"textAlign":49},[631],{"text":632,"type":579},"“The cost of installed PV is divided into two parts: the cost of the solar module and the so-called balance of system (BOS) costs which include cost for inverters, racking, and installation hardware, design and labour, as well as marketing and various regulatory and financial costs,” MIT explained.",{"type":574,"attrs":634,"content":635},{"textAlign":49},[636],{"text":637,"type":579},"“Crystalline PV, wafer-based crystalline silicon is technologically mature and large scale module manufacturing is in place. For these reasons crystalline silicon systems will likely dominate the solar energy market for the next few decades,” the institution said in a report.",{"type":574,"attrs":639,"content":640},{"textAlign":49},[641],{"text":642,"type":579},"The impact on raw material demand could be significant for both solar and batteries. While the lithium, graphite, cobalt and nickel that make up a lithium-ion cell have been well documented, the input minerals that make solar PV cells have not.",{"type":574,"attrs":644,"content":645},{"textAlign":49},[646],{"text":647,"type":579},"In simple terms, high purity silica, derived predominately from quartz, is the primary feedstock mineral that is manufactured into a crystalline block. This block is then cut into thin wafers using specially produced silicon carbide.",{"type":574,"attrs":649,"content":650},{"textAlign":49},[651],{"text":652,"type":579},"As technologies such as solar energy and lithium-ion batteries become commercialised on a mass scale, the raw materials needed to fuel these industries must also restructure. As with lithium-based batteries, solar will also face its own raw material challenges as the way we produce and consume energy evolves far quicker than it has in the past.",[654],{"slug":562,"name":563,"content":655},{"job_title":565,"image":656,"bio":568,"linkedin":569},{"filename":567},"\u003C!--#storyblok#{\"name\": \"article\", \"space\": \"\", \"uid\": \"64b6f4ad-a33e-424d-835b-35160ea220ed\", \"id\": \"\"}-->","article",[660,663],{"slug":661,"name":662},"batteries","Batteries",{"slug":664,"name":665},"critical-minerals","Critical Minerals","private",{"id":49,"alt":668,"name":668,"focus":668,"title":668,"source":668,"filename":669,"copyright":668,"fieldtype":670,"meta_data":671,"is_external_url":51},"","https://a.storyblok.com/f/287943243085208/003ef1a6e0/bm-solar-pv-image.jpg","asset",{"alt":668,"title":668,"source":668,"copyright":668},"Jul 20, 2016","20th July 2016",[],[],1792773948888]