Batteries
🔋 Australia's battery capacity has doubled – cutting reliance on gas
Battery capacity in Australia has more than doubled between March 2025 and March 2026. Gas-fired generation has fallen 24 percent and is at its lowest level since 1999. Average wholesale electricity prices have dropped 12 percent.
🔋 Sodium-ion batteries ready for mass market - cheaper and more durable than lithium-ion batteries
Sodium-ion batteries are cheaper and more durable than lithium-ion batteries, but have not been possible to manufacture at scale until now. CATL says the manufacturing challenges are solved. The cells handle more than 15,000 cycles, and sodium is 1,000 times more abundant than lithium.
⚡ New fast charger charges an EV from 10 to 70 percent in five minutes
BYD's latest fast charger delivers up to 1,500 kilowatts and can charge a battery from 10 to 70 percent in five minutes. A charge from 10 to 100 percent takes about nine minutes. That corresponds to approximately 1,000 kilometers of range.
🔋 World's first quantum battery charges faster the larger it gets
Researchers at CSIRO have created a working prototype quantum battery that charges wirelessly with a laser and completes a full battery cycle: charging, storing, and discharging energy. Unlike conventional batteries, quantum batteries charge faster the larger they are.
Ukraine builds new power grid with solar, wind and batteries that better withstands Russian attacks
A decentralized power grid with solar, wind and batteries has fewer central points that can be knocked out, unlike the old system with large power plants and centralized transmission lines.
🔋 Battery storage has become cheap enough for solar power to be delivered around the clock
The cost of large-scale battery storage fell by 40 percent in 2024 and continues to drop in 2025. Over the past decade, battery costs have fallen by an average of 20 percent per year while deployment has increased by 80 percent per year.
🔋 Battery storage doubled in 2024 – as much as in all previous history
The world installed over 160 gigawatt-hours of new battery storage in 2024, nearly as much as in all recorded history. Analysis shows that battery storage globally could reach 100–180 terawatt-hours in the long term, three to six times more than current forecasts.
🔋 Ukraine uses large battery parks to keep power supply running
Ukraine has installed six large battery parks with a total capacity of 200 megawatts that can deliver electricity to approximately 600,000 homes for two hours. The battery parks connect to the power grid and deliver power if another source goes offline, helping to avoid blackouts.
📉 Solar power with batteries became 22 percent cheaper in one year
The cost of solar power with batteries dropped 22 percent during 2024 and 43 percent since 2019. Solar power with batteries now costs around 100 dollars per megawatt hour in sunny cities, which is cheaper than coal and nuclear power.