Wind / Solar + batteries can already underprice open cycle gas turbine (OCGT) peakers in many locations.
Now we are at the point where some of the proposed alternatives to conventional battery storage can start competing head-to-head with cycle gas turbine (CCGT) generators for primary generation.
And if current cost trends continue, and ANY of the more cost-efficient expensive storage are validated at scale, by 2025-27 newly ordered Wind / Solar + storage at utility standard reliability will be the lowest cost power in most locations.
If so we will well be entering an era of energy independence AND cheaper electricity.
You want CHEAP electricity? Go nuclear.
And for alternative fuel sources:
https://whatisnuclear.com/msr.html
Battery storage of energy is just too wasteful of resources, when used on any more than very specialized applications.
What are you babbling about.
The first paragraph said:
"...Dubbed the “decade of delivery” by the World Economic Forum (WEF) and the ‘Decade of Action’ by the International Renewable Energy Agency, the 2020s is a crucial decade for the energy transition. However, to realise the full potential of renewables and meet ambitious energy transition objectives, we must have the capacity to store energy more effectively..."
These people are not our friends, FRiend, and I suspect you may know that already. I want cheap energy as much as the next person, but the things outlined in this article are not going to do it. Anytime I see the word "decarbonization", I move on, because accepting that premise we need to do that means accepting a lie and the entire logistical tail of tyranny and control that goes along with it.
This is not the path.
Some may be useful, and it is true that many mickles can make a muckle.
The pumped hydro concept has been used in a lot of places, I have one less than fifty miles from my house that they pump water to a reservoir at the top of a mountain at night when energy is cheap, then drain it during the day to generate hydroelectric power when energy is expensive. I am good with that, but it isn't going to be a solution. I like the concept of bladders filled at different depths and such, but knowing the sea as I do, and the problems of things that live at sea, this isn't a solution, although I admit I find it fascinating that the environmentalists haven't gone after them with tenterhooks because they interfere with the North Atlantic Shad population or something.
To say it is an improvement of LION batteries is damning with faint praise.
and when they go up in flames where will you get your power
Does your cost observations take into account federal tax credits? I would be surprised if any renewable/storage options are cheaper than gas/coal generation when you take out subsidies and tax credits. Even with those incentives and growing renewable penetration, electricity costs are rising dramatically everywhere.
Wind and solar have already PROVEN to be the most expensive form of energy on the planet. There’s nothing on the table that can change that. The useless pipe dreams in the article certainly won’t. Wind and solar are certainly not ‘free’ like claimed by the zealots. Oil is just as free. There’s no bill from mother earth for any of them. The cost comes from getting the energy to where and when it’s needed in a form that can be used. That’s why wind and solar are the most expensive.