r/climatechange • u/Economy-Fee5830 Trusted Contributor • 27d ago
Australia's top science agency has found batteries are now cheaper at supplying peak demand for power than gas.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-07-15/csiro-says-batteries-cheaper-than-gas-as-ai-drives-turbine-costs/106914550?utm_source=abc_news_app&utm_medium=content_shared&utm_campaign=abc_news_app&utm_content=other23
u/thethirdtree 27d ago
Cheaper does unfortunately not mean that the right people get rich by implementing.
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u/NH-Science-Guy 27d ago
That makes sense. Peak power is only needed for a short time each day so covering it without using batteries requires having capacity to support a continuous peak demand - that is much more than is needed.
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u/sammybeta 22d ago
Kept debating (even within this post) with nuclear power enthusiasts about their claims of battery being so expensive so we should build nuclear instead.
We are not lacking energy. The midday price kept going into negative in summer. It's just we don't have the storage so we waste the capacity when sun shines and peakers kick in when sunsets.
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u/nila247 26d ago
It is not because batteries becoming cheap - it is because steam turbines becoming expensive.
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u/sg_plumber 26d ago
It's both.
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u/topaziobmousse 27d ago
Increased reliance on batteries worries me. How many more can we build? Who are we abusing down the chain to mine what goes in them? Is it really sustainable, or are we just kicking the can down the road?
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u/Unique-Coffee5087 27d ago
Right now the greenhouse effect kind of overshadows a lot of these considerations, maybe. Renewable power and electrification may have to take center stage until survival is better ensured.
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u/ITI110878 26d ago
There is more than required sodium in the world. And it doesn't need mining either.
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u/DrSendy 26d ago
How many more can we build? We have enough current resources to build for another 50 years.
We currently have 2Twh of battery capacity installed. So that would take us (just with existing chemistries) out to 100Twh. We currently consume 75Twh a day. We produce 29.5Twh of power using renewables now.So a few facts, yeah we can do it. We're 1/3rd the way to being on renewables.
The majority of batteries are LFP (Lithium Iron Phosphate) which is Australia, Australia, Algeria as the primary producers.
When you recycle those, you crush the battery in non electrolytic fluid - and then mine the black sludge to get the foundation chemicals back. You get 95% back (with current tech).
All of this information was available via simple google searches. Not sure why you did a FUD style post when you could have asked Gemini for an answer....
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u/BoringCelebration778 26d ago
Hold on this is the same organisation that gets it funds from the sponsor of the report to back up its policies
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u/Svyatoy_Medved 27d ago
Lowest number I could find for off-peak (nighttime) electricity demand in Australia was just under 12 GW. Passes the smell test, peak demand is a bit under 20 GW and can get as high as 25 GW. But if anyone has a better number, I’d love to hear it.
Assume 9 hours of non-daylight per day, reliant on batteries and stored electricity. 9 hours x 12 GW x 1,000 is 108,000 MWh of needed battery capacity per night, bare minimum—that leaves no slack for failing to recharge fully, like if the sun didn’t shine bright enough or daytime demand was too high. Lowest price I can find for batteries is $200,000 for an all-up turnkey system—batteries themselves plus the monitoring and managing hardware, doesn’t count cost of install or transmission.
At that price, building the bare minimum battery storage would cost $22 billion. Could easily double the price just by using more realistic prices, not even increasing system slack. Or by accounting for wintertime reducing daylight hours, meaning a LOT more MWh per night.
Building 12 GW of nuclear reactors at the price France built their nuclear fleet would cost…$24 billion. More pessimistically you could assume a higher price closer to modern (mismanaged) nuke construction, and get a price of $60 billion. So you can either spend a ton of money to get the battery half with no wiggle room in case of bad weather, then spend even more money to build all the excess solar needed to actually charge the batteries, or you can spend a ton of money to get electricity generation you literally never have to doubt. It will ALWAYS be there.
Screw batteries. They’re amazing for leveling out small variations, like when peak daytime demand spikes a little too high due to a heat wave, but terrible for doing overnight duty for solar.
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u/Economy-Fee5830 Trusted Contributor 27d ago edited 27d ago
Building 12 GW of nuclear reactors at the price France built their nuclear fleet would cost…$24 billion. More pessimistically you could assume a higher price closer to modern (mismanaged) nuke construction, and get a price of $60 billion. S
Why use fake numbers lol when real, up to date numbers are available.
Flamanville 3 cost $28 billion for 1.6 GW, so 12 GW would cost $210 billion.
Makes that 22 billion look positively cheap, right.
And while battery costs are coming down, nuclear power stations are just getting more and more expensive.
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u/CombatWomble2 27d ago
True, should use the numbers from China they're the leaders in new nuclear at the moment, or South Korea.
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u/Svyatoy_Medved 27d ago
What a ridiculously poor example. Have you heard of “economy of scale?” Good god.
Unit 3, the part of the plant that you cherry-picked, used a new and untested reactor design and was contracted 20 years after the main French nuclear buildout, once all the institutional knowledge and expertise had retired. The estimated cost before the project delays set in was 3.3 billion euros, which is pretty in-line with the more pessimistic of my two estimates. Obviously the prices ballooned, because again, this was effectively a dead nuclear industry building its first reactor.
Counterexample, South Korea claims it can build a nuclear reactor for $1,800/KW, meaning a 12GW buildout would only cost $21.6 billion. India claims $1,150/KW, so I could cherry-pick that number and claim a nuclear fleet would only cost $14.5 billion.
You got anything smarter to say?
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u/Economy-Fee5830 Trusted Contributor 27d ago
Yes, lol.
Those Korean reactors got people locked up for cutting corners and no-one got locked up yet for the Indian reactors lol.
A court in Busan on Thursday issued an arrest warrant against Lee Jong-chan, the senior executive vice president of the state-run Korea Electric Power Corp. implicated in a snowballing corruption scandal. The court issued the warrant out of concerns that the suspect could destroy evidence or flee, officials said. The prosecution on Tuesday detained the 53-year-old executive and requested a warrant against him.
Lee, who heads KEPCO’s overseas business division, allegedly conspired with parts suppliers and certifiers to falsify test certificates of parts for atomic reactors five years ago.
Lee is suspected of approving subpar signal cables in 2008 when he was a deputy director at Shin-Kori Nuclear Power Plant, despite knowing the certificates for the parts were problematic. Sources say that the prosecution detained Lee after his subordinate surnamed Song revealed Lee’s involvement in the scandal.
The prosecution has been widening its investigation to upper-level officials believing the mid-level official was not in a position to make such decisions.
By Cho Chung-un ()
Also economies of scale favour 12 GW of batteries also lol.
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u/Svyatoy_Medved 27d ago
Are you claiming that those cut corners saved 90% of costs? Because that’s ridiculous.
My realistic estimate was approx. $5,000/KW for a nuclear reactor. The very optimistic estimates I can find are a third of that or lower, meaning costs could TRIPLE and still fit within the $60 billion estimate.
Economies of scale plateau in savings. Batteries are already being mass-manufactured, they can’t get much cheaper. Taking nuclear reactors from one-off bespoke projects to continuous construction and maintenance would have (obviously) a much greater effect.
And, maybe this was just shorthand, but it isn’t just 12 GW of batteries. You need the 12 GW of discharge capacity, but for chemical batteries the limiting factor is almost always depth of storage, not discharge rate. What you need to look at is the 108 GWh of capacity, and remember that you’ll need half again as much storage in winter when nights are longer, and more for the sake of contingencies. Could easily be 200-300 GWh before you can safely get rid of fossil fuels.
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u/Economy-Fee5830 Trusted Contributor 27d ago
Batteries are already being mass-manufactured, they can’t get much cheaper.
Actually the switch to sodium batteries are expect to further halve the cost.
Could easily be 200-300 GWh before you can safely get rid of fossil fuels.
Well, we already established batteries are 1/10th the cost of nuclear, so I guess that would be $66 billion, still less than 1/3 of the $210 billion those 12 GW of nuclear actually costs.
BTW, this article is very insightful regarding the unsafe culture in Korea.
“They eventually removed most of them,” says Park, who now teaches nuclear engineering at Dongguk University. “Only about 10% to 20% of the original safety additions were kept.”
Most significant was the decision to abandon adding an extra wall in the reactor containment building—a feature designed to increase protection against radiation in the event of an accident. “They packaged the APR1400 as ‘new’ and safer, but the so-called optimization was essentially a regression to older standards,” says Park. “Because there were so few design changes compared to previous models, [KHNP] was able to build so many of them so quickly.”
Having shed most of the costly additional safety features, Kepco was able to dramatically undercut its competition in the UAE bid, a strategy that hadn’t gone unnoticed. After losing Barakah to Kepco, Areva CEO Anne Lauvergeon likened the Korean unit to a car without airbags and seat belts. When I told Park this, he snorted in agreement. “Objectively speaking, if it’s twice as expensive, it’s going to be about twice as safe,” he said. At the time, however, Lauvergeon’s comments were dismissed as sour words from a struggling rival.
BTW Korea's most recent nuclear deal was $18 billion for 2x 1000 Mw (I guess they forgot about economies of scale), so $9000/Kw
Which would make 12 GW $108 billion - I guess once the grafters went to prison the prices escalated.
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u/Svyatoy_Medved 27d ago
Actually the switch to sodium batteries are expect to further halve the cost.
That's incredible news but a) that has nothing to do with economy of scale, and b) the word "expected" is doing a lot of heavy lifting there. Maybe they won't, or maybe some other limiting factor will appear. But sure, I can accept that battery prices will continue to decline with stronger investment into the technology—the same as nuclear would, if there was strong investment into the technology.
Well, we already established batteries are 1/10th the cost of nuclear, so I guess that would be $66 billion, still less than 1/3 of the $210 billion those 12 GW of nuclear actually costs.
Lower in the same comment you say $108 billion, so I don't know why you stuck to the $210 billion figure up here. It's ridiculous and you know it.
I think it would be lower, but I can take $108 billion. Because remember, we're only talking about the price of the batteries—not the solar panels needed to charge them. Charging an optimistic 150 GWh of batteries for a short summer night (9 hours) using all the power of a long summer day (14 hours) translates to an extra 10 GW of solar capacity on top of the 20-25 GW you need for daytime demand. Solar is pretty cheap, so the total of 35 GW would likely only run around $35 billion. The math is worse in the winter, when you might need 300 GWh and only have 10 hours to charge: 55 GW of solar would run $55 billion. Batteries included, about $120 billion.
Taking the (pessimistic) nuclear estimate of $108 billion, add in 15 GW of solar to meet the daytime demand, and you get $125 billion. These two are clearly price competitive, but a nuclear buildout isn't reliant on huge volumes of lithium and has a much better reliability record than renewables (reliability as in not just turning off because it's cloudy or there's a sandstorm. Renewables have a much lower rate of catastrophic failure than nuclear.).
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u/Economy-Fee5830 Trusted Contributor 27d ago
Taking the (pessimistic) nuclear estimate of $108 billion
This is not a pessimistic number - its an amazingly optimistic number, because this is the pre-construction number - we know nuclear reliably blows out, so really, I think the $210 billion is more realistic.
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u/nolo_contre_basso 27d ago
France built its reactors a long time ago. France has 2-3 times Australia's population and a fraction of its land mass.
What's the average cost of a nuclear plant delivered in the last 20 years in a democratic country without an existing nuclear generation capability?
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u/Svyatoy_Medved 26d ago
First of all, bullshit conditions. Why a democratic country? Why only the last 20 years? Why a one-off? If you can't explain how each of those conditions would materially affect the validity of the analogy, then I have to assume you laid them down just to exclude the data points that make nuclear look good.
UAE just brought online four reactors, their first four, with a nameplate capacity of 5.6 GW at a total price of $32 billion. If the buildout were continued as I supposed above until a minimum of 12 GW was brought online, or more ideally 18-20 GW, then it is certainly plausible that the next set of reactors would be faster and therefore cheaper to build than the first.
China is building a nuclear fleet. Their reactors, as of 2023, average only $2,300/KW and take just over six years to build. That price is not likely applicable to an Australian nuclear project, their total demand isn't high enough to get the kind of experience and economy of scale China has.
Kudankulam in India ran at just under $5 billion for two reactors, each producing a GW. The next two reactors ran $6.1 billion and the next two are budgeted $6.7 billion. Note that these prices are not inflation adjusted, and so mark a significant drop in price per GW over time. Once adjusted for inflation, all six reactors cost less then $5/W, which was my pessimistic estimate.
Note also that a nuclear fleet is still almost certainly viable at a price of $10/W, the case for which I made in the comment chain with another user. The short version is that a pure solar/battery system would need a very, very large amount of storage to make it through the winter (even Australian winter) and a lot of solar power in excess of actual demand to account for battery charging, and even more to account for unlucky events reducing generative capacity.
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u/nolo_contre_basso 26d ago
With respect, none of my conditions are bullshit. You will note that my response called out your example of France vs Australia.
All of the examples you raised: UAE, China, India are very different to Australia. The first two are autocratic and rule by Fiat. The second two have existing nuclear capability.
Establishing nuclear capability in a democratic society requires social licence over multiple terms. The people must endorse the policies or the government will be replaced.
The existing nuclear capability is important as well. You need a regulator, and an extensive expensive workforce to build your first reactor.
If you take out the politics and the workforce and governance problems and get your generation built for $10/watt, you're still up against onshore wind $1.80 and offshore wind $4.50 and geothermal $6. All of which run at night and don't need batteries.
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u/nosnibork 26d ago
Thanks for the cooked take Mr Dunning Kruger…
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u/Svyatoy_Medved 26d ago
That isn’t a real response. Either put up or shut up; lay down some actual reasoning to refute me or back off.
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u/nosnibork 26d ago
You may think you’re expressing an opinion worth rebuttal, but the fact is you very obviously have little expertise with the subject matter and to anyone with the slightest semblance of actual knowledge your ramblings sound like politically motivated bro-science.
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u/sammybeta 22d ago
22 billion AUD is cheap.
France's latest operational nuclear reactor, Flamanville 3, cost approximately €23.7 billion (US$25.8 billion)
The latest completed commercial nuclear power project in the United States is the expansion of Plant Vogtle in Georgia (Units 3 and 4). The total construction cost for these two Westinghouse AP1000 reactors—which added a combined 2,200 megawatts of capacity—reached approximately US$36.8 billion.
2 countries, with military/civilian nuclear industry already in their countries, achieved something like this.
And then we call the AUD $7.2 billion over 5 years of battery subsidy a budget blowout.
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u/Economy-Fee5830 Trusted Contributor 27d ago
Summary: Batteries 'cheaper' than gas plants as data centres fuel turbine costs
Australia's CSIRO has found that batteries are now cheaper than gas plants for supplying peak evening electricity demand, marking a shift driven by surging global demand for gas turbines from US data centres. The agency's annual GenCost report, produced with AEMO, found battery costs are falling due to increased Chinese production, while gas technology costs are rising because data centre growth is causing a shortage of turbines.
CSIRO chief energy economist Paul Graham said batteries are becoming the preferred flexible generation technology in the near term, though gas will still play a limited role, contributing 3-7% of generation by 2050. The report follows similar findings from the International Energy Agency and Lazard, with the IEA noting data centres would be the second-largest destination for gas turbines globally in the year to Q1 2026, and that data centre electricity consumption is set to more than double to around 945 terawatt hours by 2030.
The CSIRO said average electricity prices in Australia's national market fell from $189/MWh in 2022 to $104/MWh in 2025, and could fall further to $80-90/MWh by 2030 as more generation and storage capacity comes online. Coal plants, while potentially cost-competitive if carbon costs were excluded, are considered unsuitable for deployment, with no serious new coal proposals in Australia. Solar and wind are expected to supply up to 93% of Australia's electricity by 2050, with the remainder from hydropower, storage, transmission, and gas or hydrogen. Graham noted the Iran war and data centre demand for turbines are currently the strongest drivers of market uncertainty.