‘Reliable’ renewables: What cost battery storage and structural inflation?

That's expensive. If, as claimed, a Hornsdale 'big battery' costs $90 million, and batteries last 20 years, the cost is (Australian dollars) $11,740,194 million (A$11.7 trillion). If the batteries only last 10 years, the cost is A$23,480,389 million (A$23.5 trillion).

Technology improvements and scale operations might well cut unit energy storage costs a lot. Suppose such costs average just 10% of the cost for the Hornsdale SA 'big battery'. At between A$1.2 trillion and A$2.3 trillion, seasonal battery storage is still very costly.

Before allowing for the extra costs of needed solar generation capacity, and new transmission capacity everywhere, such battery costs for the NEM under a 100% solar plus 100% batteries regime are ruinous. Either seasonal reliability is sacrificed, or customer costs soar even more.

Or both.

I've not allowed for other incipient electricity demands, such as those driven by AI, cryptocurrencies, electric vehicles, 'green' production of various 'green' metals, electrolysed hydrogen, and the like. These would magnify renewables power supply problems.

I'm sceptical about 'distributed' renewables generation and transmission, and so-called 'demand response' (really a euphemism for power rationing). Who pays for all that, anyway?

Switching to a 'reliable' renewables-only policy for the NEM is a major structural inflation driver with decades still to run. Australian living standards, inevitably, will fall more.

The economic realities of intermittent renewables, plus the growing demand for maintaining reliable electric power, will force consideration of alternatives.

Note that, even if unit costs of storing energy in batteries fall to 10% of the Hornsdale 'big battery' cost, the total cost of investing in the required number of Hornsdale-equivalent energy storage units won't happen.

Why? The cost averages about the same as the current dollar value of Australian GDP.