I had exact the same discussion here 5 and 10 years ago (it will be ready next year!), I'm willing to bet that storage isn't going to cut it in the next 10 years.
There's at least two of orders of magnitude missing with the current storage gen and unless a new tech revolution happens, that's not going to work.
The supposedly massive storage which is built in your link doesn't even cover half a day of winter load.
Anything below 200GWh is a proof of concept at best.
I remember those discussions. 5-10 years ago people were summing all electric cars, including ICE cars starting batteries, to prove the scale was irrelevant.
Now the goalpost is shifted to "not even a single winter day without any other input of electricity". Which is a high 90s percent decarbonized grid. Not fully decarbonized, but almost.
In California storage is now timeshifting 50 GWh daily. An expansion that has come in the last few years.
Battery prices are down to $50/kWh when not using extremely expensive western batteries. Which means in the near future 50-200 kWh systems attached to houses. Excluding the BEV providing demand response to also help shape grid demand.
I think you should update your priors to 2026 data. We're in the point of the S-curve where batteries goes from nowhere to everywhere in the blink of an eye.
Just like solar was almost insignificant in 2020 adding a mere 140 GW over the year while in the first 6 months of 2025 we added 380 GW of solar.
Storage is time-shifting a lot of energy but it can't do long periods of time in large volumes - still a significant problem. What you are referring to is small incremental changes (like peak shaving or demand response programs in single hour increments). And it isn't only a co-ordination problem (which many companies are solving) its a physical/physics problem.
I am all for energy storage and solar - I've worked extensively in both. Their continued growth is a huge asset for humanity. That said they aren't a panacea and doesn't cover the full spectrum of energy needs even with continued cost reductions - they have constraints due to the physical reality of the world and how power is produced.
California has huge power cuts and has the benefit of having a very mild winter on top of that (can we even call a 10 degrees celcius minimum as winter? Personally I wouldn't).I wouldn't use them as a successful example of anything.
> In California storage is now timeshifting 50 GWh daily. An expansion that has come in the last few years.
I don't think you realize the scale of the problem, France alone consume 90GWh per day in winter, yes one day. And that isn't going to be any better with all petrol consumption switching to electric.
50 GWh shifting is just a proof of concept at best.
And yeah sure, see you in 2027, for sure it will be the year of storage this time.
The storage and grid upgrades have essentially removed all power outages in California? Again you operate on old information.
On the other hand California do have an absolutely massive air conditioning load in the summer.
> And that isn't going to be any better with all petrol consumption switching to electric.
Electrifying transportation is expected to add 15-25% extra load. A load that is extremely flexible in when it runs and thus perfectly match renewable intermittency.
In 2025 alone China added 168 GWh of storage.
I think you don’t realize how much even 50 GWh of storage causes the entire Californian grid to transform.
There's at least two of orders of magnitude missing with the current storage gen and unless a new tech revolution happens, that's not going to work.
The supposedly massive storage which is built in your link doesn't even cover half a day of winter load.
Anything below 200GWh is a proof of concept at best.