Leitch: 19 GW of Grid Batteries Will Gut Coal Profits in Australia
Coal profits will be eviscerated once 19 GW and 55 GWh of grid-scale batteries are running in the Australian market, analyst David Leitch wrote in RenewEconomy.
Leitch argues that a second wave of big batteries will take enough revenue from fossil fuel generators to force some coal plants to close. The threshold he sets is a fleet of 19 GW of power capacity paired with 55 GWh of energy capacity, according to RenewEconomy.
The power-to-energy ratio implied by those two figures points to storage durations short enough to compete directly in the periods when thermal plant earns most of its margin. Leitch's framing puts the pressure on profitability rather than on physical displacement of output: coal units remain able to run, but the earnings that support them do not survive the build-out.
Source: reneweconomy.com.au (opens in a new tab)1 sourcePermalink