https://ourworldindata.org/battery-price-decline
The price of battery storage is dropping exponentially, just as the price of solar power has. Eventually, the price becomes pretty trivial.
> The price of battery storage is dropping exponentially
We're at the flat end of things. Even if this trend continues, there won't be another 99% reduction coming.
> Eventually, the price becomes pretty trivial.
Only if you can scale manufacturing and materials the same way. Hopefully not with Lithium, because that's just not abundant enough.
1.78 million USD at current exchange rate. Before sales tax, but if you're buying at this scale, you claim that tax back anyway:
https://www.ladeengel.de/Batteriespeicher/Grossspeicher-ab-5...
> Only if you can scale manufacturing and materials the same way. Hopefully not with Lithium, because that's just not abundant enough.
1. Sodium is already cost-competitive with lithium, for batteries.
2. There's loads of lithium all over the place, the hard part of using it is that it's spread out everywhere rather than particularly concentrated. Like, we're talking 150 million tons of "reserves", 250 billion tons dissolved in the seawater, and plausibly 5 quadrillion tons in the bulk of the planet's rock.
You could make hamster wheels an attractive energy source with enough tax refunds. That's not an especially compelling argument when arguing about the global ramifications of a new technology. Tax breaks don't magically make alternative fuel sources better on any given axis. They shift incentives, but that power isn't infinite.
It's called "Value Added Tax" in English (UK has same rules despite Brexit), because it works out as the tax on the value you add: Business 1 digs €1 of stuff out of ground, charges their customer e.g. 15% VAT; business 2 buys it for €1.15, claims that €0.15 back always, processes the stuff into €2 of new stuff, charges their customer (in this case) €0.30; business 3 buys it for €2.30, claims that €0.30 back always; etc. all the way to the end customer or export market.
If you're spending millions on power management equipment, you're absolutely a business, and absolutely will get to claim this tax back, and you effectively owe tax only on the net benefit it brings. Electricity is also subject to VAT, though the rates are allowed to vary, and the e.g. UK electricity VAT rate is 5% while the general rate is 20%.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Value-added_tax#Comparison_wit...