“We are on the cusp of the most profound disruption of the energy sector since the advent of electricity itself over a century ago,” Seba and Dorr state. “The costs of solar photovoltaic power, onshore wind, and lithium-ion battery energy storage (SWB) have plummeted over the last two decades, and they will fall another 70%, 40%, and 80% respectively during the 2020s as their adoption continues to grow exponentially worldwide. The convergence of SWB now offers an electricity solution that coal, gas, nuclear, and other conventional energy technologies can no longer compete with.”

The new report, using a tool RethinkX calls a “clean energy U-curve”, looks for the best cost trade-offs between solar and wind generation, on one hand, and storage batteries, on the other, across different U.S. regions. “When we optimize the balance between the two, we find that the least expensive 100% SWB system will have three to five times more total generating capacity than today’s grid but require only 35 to 90 hours’ worth of batteries, depending on geography,” the two authors state.