For subscribers
Batteries come into focus in this electricity and energy roller-coaster
In the past, most of us had no alternative to a world dominated by oil and gas.
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Even countries that have long slow-walked the energy transition are now finding that EVs and renewables-plus-batteries are too cheap to resist.
ST PHOTO: CHONG JUN LIANG
David Fickling
Worried about the way crude oil has stampeded above and then back below US$100 a barrel in a matter of hours this week? What if I told you that another crucial component of energy prices has just slumped permanently beneath the same level?
That’s what’s happening with lithium-ion battery packs. Grid electricity from four-hour batteries costs US$78 (S$99) per megawatt-hour (MWh) at the end of 2025, down from US$107/MWh a year earlier, according to BloombergNEF. It has fallen more than 50 per cent since the eve of the world’s last major energy shock, when Russia invaded Ukraine in early 2022.
