Analysis finds anytime electricity from solar available as battery costs plummet

Battery tech and UPS

• Discussion compares traditional lead-acid UPS batteries with lithium chemistries, especially LFP.
• Several argue LFP is now cheaper per usable kWh over its lifetime: deeper discharge, vastly higher cycle life (thousands vs hundreds), and 10–15 year lifetimes vs 2–5 for lead-acid.
• Counterpoint: UPSes rarely discharge, so very low upfront cost still matters; the UPS market is seen as complacent and slow to adopt new chemistries.
• Safety debate: lithium (esp. NMC) can have severe thermal-runaway failures, but LFP is described as much safer and “almost on par with lead-acid.” Others remind that lead-acid has its own hazards (sulfuric acid, hydrogen venting).
• Some “solar power stations” already function as UPSes with LFP cells, but lack traditional UPS integration (PC shutdown signaling, etc.). There’s DIY experimentation replacing lead-acid with LFP in consumer UPSes, generally labeled “don’t try this at home.”

Relative costs of solar, storage, and fossil fuels

• Multiple commenters state that utility solar plus batteries is now cheaper than new gas or coal, citing levelized cost data and real project bids.
• Claims include: in many markets, even demolishing paid-off coal plants and replacing them with solar+storage is economically favorable.
• Others push back or ask for numbers; responses reference fuel costs for gas/coal, high LCOE for peaker plants, and note that coal is now uncompetitive with gas in most places discussed.
• One view emphasizes financing as the main barrier in poorer countries: solar+storage requires large upfront capital, whereas fossil fuel costs are spread over time.

Environmental and lifecycle concerns

• Critics argue solar and wind have 20-year lifespans, problematic recycling, and toxic manufacturing inputs, and may not clearly beat hydro, nuclear, geothermal or gas in all contexts.
• Replies counter that these issues are small compared to continuous mining, combustion, and waste from fossil fuels, and that “not perfect” should be weighed proportionally.
• Land-use/ecosystem impacts of large solar farms are debated; examples are given of agrivoltaics (grazing, crops under panels) to show coexistence is possible.

Headline and report interpretation

• Several find the article title (“anytime electricity from solar available…”) grammatically confusing.
• Clarification: “anytime electricity” is used as a term for dispatchable, around-the-clock power from solar when paired with cheap storage.
• Suggested alternative phrasings revolve around “falling battery costs make round-the-clock solar electricity viable/competitive.”
• The Ember report behind the article is summarized as: cheaper batteries + cheap solar now make stored solar one of the lowest-cost “anytime” options, though one commenter notes the report assumes idealized daily cycling and no curtailment.

Grid design: location, transmission, and storage

• Question: centralize solar in very sunny regions (e.g., deserts) and transmit, or build closer to load?
• One camp notes high-voltage transmission is efficient and historically favored centralization, but transmission build-out is slow, expensive, and faces permitting/NIMBY barriers.
• Others emphasize distributed generation: rooftop and local utility-scale PV avoid some grid costs, improve resilience, and sidestep bottlenecks in new transmission corridors.
• There’s agreement that multiple grids, phase issues, and security considerations make “one giant desert plant for a whole country” unrealistic.

Seasonal and regional challenges

• A recurring concern: in temperate/high-latitude regions, winter solar output is low just when demand (especially for electric heating) peaks.
• German data is cited: winter solar yields ~15% of summer; wind helps but has multi-week low periods; combined solar+wind still shows large variability.
• Examples from Germany and Switzerland show that even with large rooftop arrays, winter self-sufficiency is difficult without massive overbuild and storage; backup generation or other sources (wind, hydro, nuclear, deep geothermal) are seen as necessary.
• Some argue you can “just build more solar,” but others note that overbuilding enough to cover winter can make effective costs very high and require large seasonal storage.

Transmission vs physical transport and ultra-cheap storage

• One commenter speculates that very cheap batteries could replace long-range transmission: generate power remotely (e.g., desert solar), ship containerized batteries by train, and decouple generation from grid location.
• Multiple replies refute this with order-of-magnitude cost comparisons: rail-transported batteries are currently ~20x more expensive per MWh·1000 miles than HV transmission, even before battery capex.
• A more moderate view: if storage becomes extremely cheap, time-based smoothing (storage) can substitute somewhat for space-based smoothing (transmission), but large grids and interconnections will remain valuable for balancing weather patterns.

Policy, geopolitics, and industrial strategy

• Several celebrate how EV and solar storage scaling drove battery prices down far faster than they expected, seeing it as a major success story.
• Strong concern is expressed that China now dominates solar, battery, and EV manufacturing and may convert this into geopolitical leverage, similar in spirit (though not identical) to fossil-fuel dependence.
• US and European policy are criticized: repeated destruction of domestic solar industries, heavy dependence on Russian gas in Germany, premature nuclear shutdowns, bureaucratic obstacles to grid and clean-energy build-out.
• Broader debates emerge about whether authoritarian control accelerates industrial policy versus the value of democratic feedback, and about how far recent US politics have undermined prior technological and diplomatic advantages.
• Some note that much of the global cost decline in solar and batteries is effectively the product of a single country’s industrial strategy, and argue that its new R&D and manufacturing models are worth studying, even as others emphasize the risks of overdependence on an authoritarian state.