Batteries Buttressing Case for Optimism

Texas did what???👀 pic.twitter.com/j02FXUqqhS
— Solar and Storage Industry (@SEIA) April 3, 2026

Will Donald Trump turn out to be the Environmental President?

So let me take an optimism break and talk about why batteries may save the world.

The decline in battery prices has been incredible. It’s like nothing anyone has ever seen before. Big, strong men with tears in their eyes come up to me and say, “Sir, have you seen the progress in batteries?”:

Why does this matter?

First, cheap battery storage of electricity greatly mitigates the problem of intermittency — the sun doesn’t always shine, the wind doesn’t always blow. This was a major concern early in the renewable revolution. Some energy economists scolded me for my naïve optimism when I first wrote about solar technology way back in 2011. But solar + batteries provides round-the-clock power.

Here’s a graph of California’s electricity supply generated by renewables and batteries over the course of 24 hours on April 1 that illustrates my point:

Another view here (Peter):

Graph from California Grid System Operator (CAISO) – big solar surge in daytime, increasingly stored in battery systems, and released during evening peak hours, directly replacing gas generation

During the middle of the day, California generates lots of electricity from solar. Much of it is poured into batteries, which provide electricity when the sun sets. Californians don’t even notice the switch.

Second, battery performance has soared as prices have plunged. Crucially, there has been a huge increase in batteries’ volumetric energy density: the amount of electricity that can be stored in a given space. Until a few years ago the energy density of gasoline gave internal combustion a huge advantage over electric vehicles. But no longer. Outside the U.S. electrification, the transition away from petroleum and towards electricity — particularly green-sourced electricity — is well underway.