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  alwa
  I’d like to take a moment to praise the writing here. Rigorous, dense, and well-organized; communicative rather than coughing up tables of raw figures in prose form.I’d refer to the source studies, but at $9,990 per region… Ms Pickerel’s overview seems plenty informative for me.Regarding EMEA:> Grid-scale battery storage costs are now decisively cheaper than gas peaking across the region. [and price will fall another 33% in the decade ahead]. This shift means storage is displacing open-cycle gas turbines on cost in every gas market across the region, marking a significant structural turning point for power system planning across both the Gulf and Africa.The analyst’s bottom line:> From Latin America to Asia Pacific, the combination of falling storage costs and world-class renewable resources is closing off the economic case for new gas peaking capacity, while long-term contracted renewables increasingly set the ceiling rather than the floor on power costs.”Heady times! For all the gnashing of teeth about regulating our way out of combustion-based production—it’s ultimately superior technology that’s ripened to displace gas peaker plants, no arm-twisting required. “Not with a bang, but a whimper”…
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  Bratmon
  This entire article seems to be based on an assumption that the cost of batteries will go down 33% over the next 10 years because demand is so high, but costs of gas turbines will go up over the next 10 years because demand is so high.Neither of these assumptions are based on anything other than "That's the number we had to put in to the model to get the conclusion we want".
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  adrianN
  That seems fairly obvious, but afaik the problem is not bridging four hours, it’s bridging a cloudy week without wind in winter. For that gas currently seems cheaper
• gcanyon
  I remember arguing with friends literally only 3-4 years ago about whether solar (plus batteries) could ever fully replace fossil fuel solutions. Some of my friends are idiots. ...Or this is just a super-remarkable development :-)
• anon
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  jl6
  > For onshore wind, continuous capex and opex improvements are expected to drive LCOE down 16% by 2060What’s with the forecasts going as far out as 2060?? Given the scale of changes we’ve seen in just the last 10 years, looking forward 34 years seems absurd, and to still only expect a 16% drop in cost?
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  throwaway7783
  Im a noob to this area, but why is the article picking up on 4 hour batteries? Why not 8 or 12 hour batteries (nights, cloudy days)?
• bell-cot
  Note that the article is specific to open-cycle gas turbines. Which are somewhat cheaper than the (more complex) combined-cycle gas turbines, and can be brought online far faster - but are far less efficient. So, the open-cycle turbines have been economical only for covering short-duration demand peaks - a use case where batteries are now superior.Vs. longer-duration needs, like a couple calm (bad for wind power) dark (bad for solar power) weeks in winter - you will need combined-cycle turbines or something for those, because installing that many batteries would cost too much.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gas-fired_power_plant#Plant_ty...
• NetMageSCW
  The title really needs the word “peaker” in it to make sense.
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  shawndrost
  The basic unit of analysis in think tanks and media is nameplate capacity, ie a MW of four-hour battery would be compared to a MW of gas turbines.The most important driver of power system costs is "firm capacity"; a MW of four-hour battery might be 10%-50% as valuable as a MW of gas turbines given that the latter will run for 100-1000 hours per year when the batteries are empty and the prices are much higher. This is true on the grid or behind the meter.
• amelius
  Title should include that the battery is also installed all across the globe.
• formvoltron
  solve the two problems with datacenters with a single solution.solar panels & batteries in the texas oil patch or sw or mexico... morocco or spain.. australia...everything associated with datacenters does not pay tariffs. tech leaders could lead the way here and not only provide AI but also potentially take big steps towards solving the climate crisis.certainly cheaper than putting panels in space. (do the math)
• anon
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  thelastgallon
  First step is to do massive vertical solar in cities everywhere. Zero cost of [land, long distance transmission lines, transmission infrastructure]. There are already structural elements of a building, dirt cheap solar panels can be hung vertically at a minimal cost, or cost nothing (after building code is updated to require all buildings to have structural features to support vertical solar.All cities have buildings, all buildings have surfaces. In addition, there are walls/fences. This adds ~4 hours of extra solar production.Next is EVs as energy storage. People buy cars anyways. An EV looks, works, functions and smells exact like a gas car. Some might even say it smells better. Its not like going from horses to cars, nothing that radical. With EVs, we add a TON of storage. 20% or more solar production is curtailed, all of this can go to EVs. EVs can supply power back to the grid. Or power home throughout the night.Finally, add BESS if needed.28% of trips are under a mile, 52% under three, 64% under five, 79% under ten, 93% under twenty-five, and 98% under 50 miles. Only 0.8% of the trips are over 100 miles! EVs have humongous batteries, you can control the level of charge/discharge from the gridPeople should be paid for using their EVs. They are after all providing critical, highly resilient infrastructure at no cost to govts and utilities. I don't think there is any compelling reason to make the super-billionaires like Warren Buffet richer.
• boringg
  Come on - thats not solving all the problems that you buy GENERATORS for. 4 hour bridge is great - but emergency power or always on -- 4 hours is not enough.Battery is load balancing not generation.
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  ErikCorry
  The "4 hour" is doing a lot of work here.Put another way, you need the gas turbines for the two week dunkelflaute (winter doldrums). Given that you have the turbines already, when are batteries cheaper than running the turbines for a few hours every evening?A more interesting question than the cheapest 4 hour solution. I think that answer might also be batteries soon.