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Comment by transfire | Hacker News Reader

I don't think (a) is true because (b) and/or (c) is exactly what people will eventually do --although in the case of (c) it will be hydrogen fuel cells.

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It costs at least some $400/kWh for battery storage. That amounts to $12k dollars for each house for supplying average consumption; that's a huge cost already. If you want (a) to be false, I guess you need to multiply that by two at least. It just doesn't make sense to make each house do it individually, the grid is a wonderful technology that reduces this risks, smooths consumption and provides storage/generation economies of scale. It just doesn't make sense to abolish it entirely for all but the most isolated places.

I pay about $150/mth on electricity ($1800/yr), if your numbers are to be believed, then it would take about ~13.2 years to pay off a 24k battery pack, this doesn't include the cost of the panels which would probably be another 24K, so roughly a 26 years to pay off (Probably the working life of the panels) So basically at current prices the cost is on par with my utility. It's not amazing, but with the right gov't incentives and future advancements in battery and solar technology I don't see why we couldn't see renewables edge out the dominant players. Sucks for me though, just finished my B.eng in mechanical with specialization in thermal power generation.

Here's a great recent article about the current and anticipated future prices of energy storage: http://rameznaam.com/2015/04/14/energy-storage-about-to-get-...

It's based mostly on a recent paper in nature that estimates "that EV batteries in 2014 cost between $310 and $400 per kwh", but anticipates "It’s now in the realm of possibility that we’ll see $100 / kwh lithium-ion batteries in electric vehicles by 2020, with some speculating that Tesla’s ‘gigafactory’ will push into sufficient scale to achieve that."

His numbers roughly agree with yours:

  So we’d estimate that at the following battery prices we’d 
  get the following effective LCOEs (Levelized Cost of Electricity):

  - $300 / kwh battery  :  33 cent / kwh electricity storage
  - $200 / kwh battery  :  22 cent / kwh electricity storage
  - $150 / kwh battery  :  17 cent / kwh electricity storage
  - $100 / kwh battery  :  11 cent / kwh electricity storage

  All of those battery costs, by the way, are functions of 
  what the ultimate buyer pays, including installation and maintenance.

I was just discussing this with someone who installed solar panels on their house about 8 months ago. I think your numbers are a little bit off.

We live in south western ohio and said person took their bill from $300-400/mo to $30/mo (at 13 cents per kWh) with $11k of solar panels. They have a payoff period of about 3 years not including the $4k rebate they got which reduces the payoff cost to a little under 2 years.

Keep in mind this is a place that doesn't get nearly as much sun as much more southern areas/Hawaii.

I do agree that batteries still have a payoff period that is too long to be economical. Here's rooting for Mr. Musk.

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