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Wazzup Pilipinas!?
A monumental shift is reshaping the global energy landscape: the once-prohibitive cost of battery storage has collapsed, making dispatchable solar—solar power available day and night—an economic reality. New analysis from the energy think tank Ember reveals that dramatic price drops in 2025 have confirmed batteries are now cheap enough to transform cheap daytime solar into reliable, anytime electricity.
This is a game-changer for countries with soaring electricity demand and abundant solar resources.
The New Benchmark: $65/MWh Levelised Cost of Storage (LCOS)
Ember's assessment, based on recent auction results from markets like Saudi Arabia, India, and Italy, shows the Levelised Cost of Storage (LCOS) has fallen to just $65/MWh as of October 2025, in markets outside of the US and China.
This groundbreaking LCOS is driven by a stunning reduction in the total cost to build a utility-scale Battery Energy Storage System (BESS):
Total Project Capital Expenditure (CAPEX): An all-in cost of just $125/kWh for long-duration (4 hours or more) utility-scale BESS projects.
Core Equipment Cost: The core equipment, mainly sourced from China, costs around $75/kWh. This covers the BESS enclosures, Power Conversion System (PCS), and Energy Management System (EMS).
Installation & Connection: Engineering, Procurement, and Construction (EPC) services and grid connection typically add approximately $50/kWh.
More Than Just Cheaper Batteries
While the cost of battery equipment saw a 40% fall in 2024 and is on track for another major decline in 2025, the dramatic drop in LCOS is not solely due to cheaper hardware. Modern battery performance is far superior, with key improvements contributing to the sharp decline in storage costs:
Longer Lifetime
Modern Lithium Iron Phosphate (LFP) technology enables a 20-year standard design life, which alone reduces the LCOS by approximately $20/MWh.
Higher Efficiency
Round-trip, AC-to-AC efficiencies are now typically 90%, cutting an estimated $5/MWh off the LCOS compared to older models.
Lower Project Risk
Increased safety and the shift from high-risk merchant revenue models to lower-risk auction models have lowered the cost of capital from 10% to 7%, saving around $10/MWh.
Taken together, these performance and financing improvements have reduced the LCOS by over a third—from an estimated $100/MWh to $65/MWh—even before accounting for falling battery prices.
The Economic Case for Dispatchable Solar
The $65/MWh LCOS means that turning intermittent solar energy into reliable, dispatchable power is stunningly cheap:
The Cost to Store: Shifting 50% of a day’s solar generation to cover night-time demand adds only $33/MWh to the total cost of solar.
Total Dispatchable Cost: Using the 2024 global average solar price of $43/MWh, the resulting total cost of dispatchable solar is just $76/MWh.
"Solar is no longer just cheap daytime electricity; with storage, it becomes dispatchable, anytime electricity," said Kostantsa Rangelova, Global Electricity Analyst at Ember.
This makes dispatchable solar competitive with, and often cheaper and quicker than, building a new gas power plant, especially in countries reliant on costly Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) imports. The pairing of solar and batteries provides a scalable, secure, and affordable foundation that is on track to meet much of the world’s future energy demand growth over the next decade.
Ross is known as the Pambansang Blogger ng Pilipinas - An Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Professional by profession and a Social Media Evangelist by heart.
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