Value chain · CLM-0543
In plain terms
The US national energy laboratory's 2025 projections have the cost of a four-hour grid battery falling by 2050 in every case it models, to roughly 100 to 300 dollars per kilowatt-hour of storage depending on how fast costs fall.
The claim as recorded
NREL's 2025 Annual Technology Baseline projects the overnight capital cost of a 4-hour US utility-scale battery, without tax credits, at about USD 143/236/313 per kWh of storage in 2035 and USD 105/173/299 per kWh in 2050 across its Advanced, Moderate and Conservative cases (2023 dollars), falling in every case; its battery-energy component alone is USD 71/155/224 per kWh in 2035 and USD 36/98/211 in 2050.
Evidence behind this: RE-GRADED T3 to T4 on 2026-09-11, under the weakest-source rule: SRC-196 is graded T4. SRC-196 is a subscription research product and is NOT HELD, which is an acquisition question and not a tier one - a tier grades the document's standing and the weakest-source rule compares grades rather than readings. The other half of this record moved the other way on 2026-09-10: its NREL figures turned out to be readable after all, because the workbook is held under SRC-145 and SRC-195 now names the two utility-scale battery sheets. So one half became checkable and the other remains unobtained, and the tier follows the weaker.
Scope and limits
US-market projections in 2023 dollars, not restated for the UK. The figures earlier in this record (152/247/349 and 111/184/333) did not reproduce from the held workbook and are withdrawn (VER-1041); they may come from another edition, which is not held. The BloombergNEF figure (USD 78/MWh in 2025, a 27 per cent fall) is removed from the claim: BNEF's report is a subscription product, not held, and was known only through second-hand reporting. The original record was reached via web search synthesis, not a direct primary-document read of either NREL/NLR's workbook or BNEF's underlying report; BNEF's report is a subscription research product summarised second-hand here. US-market figures; not independently confirmed to apply to UK storage costs. 2026-09-10: THE NREL HALF IS NOW DIRECTLY CHECKABLE, AND SHOULD BE CHECKED. The workbook is held under SRC-145, and SRC-195 now names its two utility-scale battery sheets, so the six capital-cost figures above can be read from the primary document rather than from a summary of it. This does not make the sentence above wrong, and it was reported here as a falsification, which overstates it. That sentence records how the claim was REACHED - by web search synthesis - and that is unchanged by the workbook turning out to be held. What changes is that VER-1041's NOT CONFIRMED becomes closeable by a read, where previously it rested on a source the register described as unheld. The BNEF half is untouched: it is a subscription research product, it is not held, no route to it has been attempted, and the figure remains summarised second-hand.
What it assumes
No assumptions are recorded against this claim.
Where it comes from
, sheet Utility-Scale Battery - R&D, read 2026-10-03 (paraphrased; the workbook has no measured text length, so no label is quoted): the sheet states that all values are in 2023 US dollars. Overnight capital cost in USD per kW, 4-hour utility-scale battery storage, R&D cost drivers without tax credits: 2035 Advanced 572.98, Moderate 944.16, Conservative 1253.97; 2050 418.53, 693.78, 1194.77 (divided by 4 h for per-kWh figures, our arithmetic). Battery energy capital cost in USD per kWh: 2035 71.02, 154.54, 224.24; 2050 36.27, 98.20, 210.92. The sheet gives total system cost per kW as battery energy cost per kWh times storage duration in hours, plus battery power cost per kW.
Basis: USD 2023 (stated on the workbook sheet); per kWh of storage for a 4-hour utility-scale system, overnight capital without tax credits
Related records
- Answers question
- QST-021 not published in this release
Cite this
energyaperture.com/c/clm-0543
CLM-0543, Energy Aperture, as of 2025-2026.
Connected records
Other published records linked to this one. A list, not a judgement.
- Also from SRC-145
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