Batteries are everywhere. They're in our phones, our remote controls, smart-watches, electric cars and so much more. They could also be the solution to a problem that renewable energy companies have faced for years: How to store the mass amounts of energy they produce for later use. Some companies are using batteries to make renewable energy accessible 24/7. Today, we dig into how the technology is rapidly progressing with Cooper Katz McKim, a producer from fellow NPR podcast The Indicator from Planet Money. Listen to The Indicator's three-part battery series. Have questions about the future of technology? Contact us at [email protected]. Listen to every episode of Short Wave sponsor-free and support our work at NPR by signing up for Short Wave+ at plus.npr.org/shortwave.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy
Chapter 1: What is the role of batteries in renewable energy?
Oh, Emily, hi. That's just me turning on and off the lights at a facility in California where there is battery power energizing the grid. Like literally holding energy and then releasing it onto the grid that powers all our homes.
Interesting, but in California, I'd expect energy to be coming from places like natural gas or hydro. You're telling me batteries are in the mix?
Chapter 2: How significant is grid-scale battery storage in California?
Grid-scale battery storage is surprisingly oftentimes the second largest source of energy on a given day in California.
I didn't know that battery storage could be used at that level.
I mean, just a few years ago, it was unimaginable. Grid-scale storage like this, it was basically a dream technology for renewable companies, a what-if scenario.
Right. And those companies historically have been using technologies at the whim of the weather. If the sun doesn't shine, solar energy isn't so great.
If the wind doesn't blow, exactly. And battery storage, it changes that equation.
Right, because you can store energy inside a battery somehow.
And then tap into it whenever it's needed. Well, that dream tech is now very much mainstream. around 2020 to 2021, battery storage capacity jumped 230% across the U.S.
Oh, wow.
More and more was added in 22, 23, and it really took off, particularly in California. To see it for myself, I showed up to a site called Cal Flats in Central California. It's this 2,900-acre plot of land just covered in solar panels. There's, like, goats running around. There's little fox habitats.
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Chapter 3: What led to the rapid growth of battery technology?
Well, it's clearly a big topic. And you produced a three-part series all about batteries for your podcast, The Indicator from Planet Money.
Right. But there were still a few questions that I wanted to dig into. So, Emily, today on the show, we tackle the technological reasons behind batteries taking off so fast and what's next for them.
Let's go on a battery-powered magic carpet ride. You're listening to Shortwave from NPR.
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So grid-scale battery storage has taken off the past few years. But Cooper, a lot of different technologies have their moment. So why is this rise to the mainstream for battery tech different in some way?
Yeah, I mean, it's not like one day some company said we're going to make batteries powerful enough to support the grid. That would have been awesome, but it kind of has to go back a ways. The batteries I saw on Cal Flats, it arguably goes back to the 90s when Sony introduced their camcorder with a little rechargeable battery inside of it.
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Chapter 4: How are batteries changing energy consumption patterns?
Chapter 5: What is the battery domino effect?
Yeah, I mean, it's not like one day some company said we're going to make batteries powerful enough to support the grid. That would have been awesome, but it kind of has to go back a ways. The batteries I saw on Cal Flats, it arguably goes back to the 90s when Sony introduced their camcorder with a little rechargeable battery inside of it.
Dan Walter studies the rapid growth of electrotech-like batteries.
In the first sector, you roll out batteries that are just good enough for that sector, and they just meet the demands of the Sony camcorder.
These batteries, I feel like I've seen a descendant of them in my digital camera. They're the kind of boxy cube batteries that you can recharge.
Right. It's kind of satisfying to click in at that one.
Yeah.
We've all definitely used those batteries at some point. That's basically at the root of what Dan calls the battery domino effect.
Because that is a growing market and that market expands, you can create more and more factories that make batteries. And as you build more factories, it becomes cheaper and the batteries become of higher quality.
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Chapter 6: How do electric vehicles influence battery technology?
Over time, people wanted longer-lasting and cheaper batteries, so companies had an incentive to develop them.
You get a technology development that's very rapid, driven by a group of consumers that has a very high willingness to pay.
We're battery hungry in the 90s and the aughts.
Yeah. And the whole story starts over as another sector finds use for that same battery from camcorders to laptops, e-bikes, three wheelers, cars. Each sector is full of people who want better batteries and will pay for it.
Chapter 7: What are the future prospects for battery technology?
It really has been a story of consumerism, but also clever policy of countries that have realized that there's a competitive advantage in winning batteries.
What's astonishing about this story is I was alive during this battery revolution, and I witnessed it from childhood to now. And I kind of just took it for granted that battery tech was like racing to keep up with our voracious need. Then, you know, I think about electric vehicles coming along. I mean, those must have bumped this development even more. EVs are everywhere.
Yeah, that's a perfect transition to Dan's second point because the growth of EVs is a big part of this story. Long before others were investing in battery storage like back in the aughts, leadership in China saw an opportunity with the technology and became a hub for manufacturing batteries. It wasn't a big market yet, but they saw an opportunity. Wow.
And as EVs got more popular, it drove the volume of larger, lighter, denser batteries way up. That made batteries way cheaper.
How cheap are we talking?
Since 2010, the average cost of batteries has fallen more than 90%, which is one of the fastest cost drops of any energy technology ever. It's grown into new markets, new countries. And by 2021, battery storage finally reached that tipping point in the U.S., where they were literally contributing electricity to the entire grid.
Right. And you mentioned that earlier, that 2021 was the year there was this big jump, that battery storage capacity increased 230%. Right.
No, exactly.
And that brings us to the situation today where batteries are all over the economy in cars and mopeds and buses and trucks to drive them around.
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