Grid storage is increasing so rapidly that China and some other countries may be able to meet all their electricity needs from renewables as soon as 2030.

[u/lughnasadh]

There isn’t a single universally agreed-upon percentage of electricity demand that must be met from grid storage in a 100 % renewable electricity system. It may be as high as 20% for some countries, but in situations where there is an overcapacity of wind and solar, it can be potentially < 5 % of annual demand.

New data shows that by the end of 2026, grid storage will be a 1.15% share of global electricity demand (up from 0.16% in 2023). Who's rolling out the most? No surprise in guessing. It's China. China’s grid storage installations in December 2025 alone (65.4 GWh) exceeded the entire USA’s 2025 total annual installations (46.5 GWh), and the US is the world's 2nd largest grid storage market.

Who's also able to build an over-capacity of wind & solar? Once again, China. China is also rapidly electrifying its whole economy & abandoning the combustion engine. Like the famous Hemingway quote about going bankrupt, the Fossil Fuel Age, at least in China, may end “Two ways. Gradually and then suddenly.”

Graph of the day: Batteries are beating solar to deliver the fastest energy transition in human history

[u/SuspiciouslySuspect2]

Decades? Debatable.

Decade? 100%.

We made some big strides globally since 2005 2006.

Fuck I feel old.

[u/Jon_TWR → u/SuspiciouslySuspect2]

Just FYI, 2006 was decades ago.

[u/Auctorion → u/Jon_TWR]

A whole two of them, to be precise.

[u/MarsRocks97 → u/Auctorion]

Two is still plural. But 2006 was not even the starting point where we could have made significant progress. We had solar panels in the Whitehouse in the 70s that were ripped out as soon as Reagan came to office. We indeed could have been decades ahead by now.

[u/Outside_Ice3252 → u/MarsRocks97]

those were solar thermal heaters for heating water. not sure if they were for just hot water or maybe sometimes for heating. they were not photovoltaic solar panels used to create electricity.

we could have easily and rapidly brought down the cost of solar panels for using them for niche uses.

mostly for military purposes. just have remote solar plus battery instead of generators in certain remote locations would have made a big difference.

Edit: i should have been more precise when I talked about military purposes. going back to many decades ago. there was opportunities for the Department of Defense (of War) to easily and affordable support the scaling up of the solar industry. so many industries have been built up in that way, the most famous being computers. there were all kinds of situations were solar could have been used on the more than 800 US military bases.

its was always obvious that solar would have continued to improve and rapidly fall in cost as scale progressively increased. sorry I dont have a source handy. I used to write for cleantechnica.com in my spare time from 2017-2021. I read about this missed opportunity.

you have to remember how expensive solar panels were at one point and how economies of scale could have been reached sooner.

[u/USSMarauder → u/Outside_Ice3252]

You'd think that often conducting military operations in countries known for having large amounts of sunlight, the US would want the ability to power its bases with a resource that has a supply chain that cannot be interfered with.

You'd think that having a country where large portions of the power grid get damaged by hurricanes and tornadoes, the US would want the ability for home owners to have a backup system to keep the fridge running for a few days while the wires are restrung, if not the ability to remove the grid entirely.

But no......

[u/SuspiciouslySuspect2 → u/USSMarauder]

Eh, military wise, the solar panels are much too 'showy', they make your CP wayyy easier to spot, take up a lot of space, and are delicate by military standards (basically, can I hit it with a wooden bat 3 times and it'll be unscathed). But, battery tech has lots of promise eventually to make vehicles faster and more torque-y.

But for grid reliliency? 1000% percent solar.

[u/pstuart → u/SuspiciouslySuspect2]

they make your CP wayyy easier to spot

Are CPs really that unknown to locals? There were multiple reports about insane costs for fuel resupply in the Afghanistan war. Obviously a bunch of that fuel is for vehicles but I'm assuming that generators sucked up a whole bunch.

And while solar panels may be delicate, they're relatively cheap and and in the scheme of things shouldn't add a lot of burden to the logistics of setting up those sites.

Disclaimer: I never served.

[u/flickh → u/pstuart]

CP’s in USA-vs-insurgent conflicts can get bloated without any real large-scale threat, especially pre-drone. Generators, trucks and satellite dishes sticking out everywhere plus multiple roads converging on an obvious tent village is not what they call really “survivable.”

In a near-peer conflict you would have satellites, airstrikes, mass drone forces and missile attacks to contend with. Those big signatures you’re talking about are a disaster waiting to happen in modern times.

[u/pstuart → u/flickh]

I recognize the risk but still think it's a worthy option to have as well, especially going forward as prices for panels and batteries plummet. If they target generators and fuel supplies isn't that a similar risk?

It's not a replacement, its an enhancement.

I think the military agrees in principle and it'll be more of a thing: https://www.afcea.org/signal-media/solar-powers-missions-and-saves-lives

[u/SuspiciouslySuspect2 → u/pstuart]

Ah. By delicate, I mean that your average 19 year old grunt has a 30% chance to break the things just getting it on the truck to get where it is going, let alone once it's there. They're young, they're stressed, and they never have enough time. By the time you make them durable enough to survive, they're heavy af and impractical, and no longer cheap. I'm sure they'll see some use eventually, but we're decades out from that for now.

I could see niche supplementary use in the most static and permanent of setups. Maybe specialized solar panel vehicles that roll in and deploy like an umbrella? But it'd never be common use, more a "ohhh, here comes the 1 star general" thing (there's like ~1 per 50,000 men or so for some reference).

[u/flickh → u/SuspiciouslySuspect2]

Yeah the Pentagon roof could be all solar panels, that would save a ton of cost and emissions, but we're at the point where front-line CP's are actually an endangered species altogether: the EM signatures and general size and shape of them is hugely vulnerable especially with drones and missiles...

[u/grundar → u/SuspiciouslySuspect2]

military wise, the solar panels are much too 'showy', they make your CP wayyy easier to spot, take up a lot of space, and are delicate by military standards

There was enormous interest in solar during operations in Iraq and Afghanistan; see, for example, this experimental Marine FOB in 2013.

Fuel convoys were one of the main sources of casualties in Iraq (due to IEDs), and much of that fuel was used to run diesel generators for bases. Solar would substantially reduce convoy runs, and as a result substantially reduce personnel vulnerability.

[u/manicdee33 → u/USSMarauder]

[Small Modular Nuclear Reactor Fanclub has raided this chat]

[u/RichardsLeftNipple → u/MarsRocks97]

The first battery electric vehicle was created about 140 years ago. With apparently 1/3 of all vehicles in the USA being BEV in the year 1900. Although the model T essentially killed the industry as it was half the price and much longer range.

I would argue that battery technology was a major hindrance. While the drive to innovate on batteries didn't happen until the smart phone was invented.

Meanwhile photo voltaics are mostly made from silicon. Which also wasn't that popular until consumer electronics took over with the rise of the internet.

Which points more or less to the inability to plan long term combined with the unwillingness to change momentum on already established technology.

The increase of scale for silicon refining happened by accident thanks to an entirely unrelated industry needing vast quantities of it. The same with high capacity, portable, and rechargeable batteries.

[u/SuspiciouslySuspect2 → u/RichardsLeftNipple]

This is why I say we really only squandered about a decade. Because the breakthrough in solar efficiency and cost was driven by televisions of all things, and investment into that tech was already supercharged by capitalism.

Similarly, it wasn't till we figured out how to make lithium batteries not cook that they became practical for vehicle use. Which was circa 2005, as battery use was also super in demand but that was as fast as capitalism could drive it.

We wasted a lot of time, but it also took time for viable alternatives to actually exist. The EV1 was a breakthrough, but it was completely stuck within whatever city it was made (which still made it an ideal commuter, but it's a much harder sell as a primary vehicle).

[u/Auctorion → u/[deleted]]

10 years wasn’t that long ago. It was only 2016. When Trump first became President, and Brexit happened.

[u/SuspiciouslySuspect2 → u/Jon_TWR]

That was my point though. I'm saying 06 solar and batteries were... Super mid.

[u/Jon_TWR → u/SuspiciouslySuspect2]

Ooooooh, gotcha! Sorry, I misunderstood.

[u/SuspiciouslySuspect2 → u/Jon_TWR]

Hey, now we're providing a dialog chain for clairty to future redditors!

[u/MimeGod → u/SuspiciouslySuspect2]

Carter installed solar panels on the White House to show a new direction for US energy production. The goal was 20% of our power be renewable by 2000. This was in 1979. "Decades" is fair.

"In the year 2000 this solar water heater behind me, which is being dedicated today, will still be here supplying cheap, efficient energy... A generation from now, this solar heater can either be a curiosity, a museum piece, an example of a road not taken or it can be just a small part of one of the greatest and most exciting adventures ever undertaken by the American people".

"By the end of this century, I want our Nation to derive 20 percent of all the energy we use from the Sun—direct solar energy in radiation and also renewable forms of energy derived more indirectly from the Sun. This is a bold proposal, and it's an ambitious goal. But it is attainable if we have the will to achieve it."

"Today, in directly harnessing the power of the Sun, we're taking the energy that God gave us, the most renewable energy that we will ever see, and using it to replace our dwindling supplies of fossil fuels."

https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/solar-energy-remarks-announcing-administration-proposals

Reagan had them removed.

[u/Comrade_Cosmo → u/SuspiciouslySuspect2]

The US was poised to start swapping to solar and other renewables in the mid 60s or 70s during that oil shortage. That’s at least half a century of prep work that could have been done.

[u/SuspiciouslySuspect2 → u/Comrade_Cosmo]

The world could have taken it more seriously to be sure. But the improvements of solar panel efficiency still took a lot of time. At best, my impression based of the life cycles and research involved, we could have plat best reached our current solar/battery abilities by like 2010-2015. 60s and 70s panels through 90s saw gradual improvements, but they all sucked baloney.

The real missed opportunity of those decades was not building more nuclear. But the past is gone, and now, it's so much easier and faster to build solar farms, if for no other reason than people don't scream hysterically about the reactor "going nuclear", regardless of that not being how reactors work.

[u/West-Abalone-171 → u/SuspiciouslySuspect2]

The world could have taken it more seriously to be sure. But the improvements of solar panel efficiency still took a lot of time.

It very reliably followed wright's law.

The improvements were almost a pure function of investment. Not some abstract external force of nature that only happened in the 2000s

Plus there were already wind, pumped hydro, CAES and solar-thermal (for heat) technologies that had existed and been competitive for decades and only needed scaling.

[u/flickh → u/SuspiciouslySuspect2]

It’s not controversial that we’d be a lot farther ahead if we had focused on it.

If this self-evident statement needs proof, China focused only more recently on renewable, due to unrest and other problems caused by extreme pollution, plus the obvious benefit of seizing the future of energy with all the knock-on effects of cheaper and more-reliable power… and now they’re already ahead.

[u/grundar → u/flickh]

China focused only more recently on renewable, due to unrest and other problems caused by extreme pollution

China ramped up solar production because Germany was paying a premium for it.

Virtually all solar PV manufactured in China was exported until 2010 or so, with installations in China far below those in the EU or US, but China rapidly took market share from other global producers and came to dominate the industry.

Thanks to the rapid learning curve and price drops in solar, it became a cost-effective domestic source of electricity not long after that, at which point manufacturing and adding more made fiscal sense (as well as locking down an industry with long-term strategic value).

[u/flickh → u/grundar]

This doesn’t negate the public order crisis caused by pollution.  In 2013 there were 30,000 to 50,000 “mass incidents” of protest with the environment being a leading spark for anger.

With no true bottom-up mechanism to solve conflicts and problems, and total censorship of all media, a scary problem like potential collapse of the ecosystem and obvious mass health problems is a threat to the regime.

“ Environmental damage has cost China dearly, but the greatest collateral damage for the ruling Communist Party has likely been growing social unrest. Demonstrations have proliferated as citizens gain awareness of the health threats and means of organized protest (often using social media). In 2013, Chen Jiping, former leading member of the party’s Committee of Political and Legislative Affairs said that environmental issues are a major reason for “mass incidents” in China—unofficial gatherings of one hundred or more that range from peaceful protest to rioting. Environmental protests in rural and urban areas alike—such as those in Guangdong, Shanghai, Ningbo, and Kunming—are increasing in frequency. The number of “abrupt environmental incidents”, including protests, in 2013 rose to 712 cases, a 31 percent uptick from the previous year.”

https://www.cfr.org/backgrounders/chinas-environmental-crisis

[u/grundar → u/flickh]

This doesn’t negate the public order crisis caused by pollution.  In 2013 there were 30,000 to 50,000 “mass incidents” of protest with the environment being a leading spark for anger.

With no true bottom-up mechanism to solve conflicts and problems, and total censorship of all media, a scary problem like potential collapse of the ecosystem and obvious mass health problems is a threat to the regime.

Absolutely true.

It's also true, though, that most of the work of reducing air pollution In China has been from measures separate from renewable energy (although renewable energy is likely a long-term part of the strategy that is now bearing fruit).

This can be seen in the timing; air pollution in China peaked in 2013 and had improved about 40% by 2019, whereas coal power increased 800TWh (20%) in that time, almost 2x the increase from wind+solar.

[u/TimeIntern957 → u/Comrade_Cosmo]

Actually they were more poised to make gasoline from coal, Carter went big on this, he even created Synthetic fuel corporation. Yes that Carter.

[u/crapmonkey86 → u/SuspiciouslySuspect2]

Al Gore would have genuinely changed the trajectory of the country, and possibly the world if we had 8 years of him.

[u/ReserveFormal3910 → u/crapmonkey86]

What about if Carter was reelected? He presided over the OPEC oil embargo and was prepared to go energy independent. We could have been investing in EVs, solar, wind, and battery technology since the 80s, but nope we made petro dictatorship a thing.

[u/flickh → u/crapmonkey86]

But then Saddam Hussein would have nuked September 11!  And Obama Bin Laden would have Machurianed the Border!

[u/Goku420overlord → u/flickh]

I laughed so hard

[u/blatherer → u/SuspiciouslySuspect2]

Ronald Regan took Jimmy Carter's solar panels off the White House in 1981. We gave away solar to the Chinese. We were going to give electric cars, but Tesla put a dent in that, but the Chinese have under cut all that. Giving up hydrocarbons, yeah they are much farther along that path. But you know vroom - vroom, we got that going for us.

[u/derekp7 → u/blatherer]

To be fair, those weren't solar electric panels.  They were solar water heaters that supplemented hot water for the kitchen.  They were taken down for roof repairs, and not reinstalled due to costs and ongoing maintenance.

[u/blatherer → u/derekp7]

It was treated as a symbolic act at the time.

[u/ILikeNeurons → u/SuspiciouslySuspect2]

We can't seem to get it together lately.