World's largest li-ion battery

From PV-magazine:

Back in the quaint days of late 2017, the world was awoke by a batch of bids of momentous size – and shockingly low pricing – in a solicitation by Xcel Energy. In fact, the median bid on 16 GW of solar+storage came in at only 3.6¢ per kilowatt-hour (kWh). This price was only 0.65¢/kWh more than the 30 GW of solar-only bids.

For perspective’s purpose, according to the EIA in 2016 either operations or maintenance for ‘fossil steam’ electricity sources were above 5¢/kWh for existing facilities across the USA. This is before fuel costs estimated at an average of 2.5¢/kWh.

Yesterday saw the close of another public step in this proposal process.

The individual solar power project range in capacity from 72 to 250 MW. The individual energy storage projects range from 50 to 125 MW, with two and four-hour ratings. The total solar to be deployed under this plan would be 707 MW-AC, with 275 WM/1,000 MWh of energy storage.

The solar power bids ranged from 2.3-2.7¢/kWh, while solar plus storage ranged from 3.0-3.2¢/kWh. While it makes for an imperfect comparison as solar project costs vary, the solar vs solar+storage delta is 0.5-0.8¢/kWh.

Even more eye popping was the wind power pricing that ranged from 1.1-1.8¢/kWh.  When these bids came out back in January, CarbonTrack.org noted that at 3.6¢/kWh for solar+storage 74% of coal would be would priced higher. With the new pricing of the solar+storage turning out to be 3.0-3.2¢/kWh – 100% of coal powered generation is now more expensive.

[Read more here]

Source: PV-Magazine

I used to think that battery storage would be behind-the-meter (as in household/small business Powerwall batteries) plus grid-level storage.  In fact, it looks as if the majority of storage will actually be at generator level, at wind or solar farms, because this reduces the cost of curtailment or low wholesale prices, while providing the "firm" output utilities require.  Future wind and solar farms will have several hours of attached storage (existing ones will retrofit storage), and this will provide quasi-baseload/dispatchable electricity much more cheaply than coal--as the bids quoted above show, at one third the cost of coal.  As it goes in Colorado so it will go everywhere in the world.