Price of solar modules and battery storage have jumped by one third in US

The company behind one of the biggest solar and battery storage projects in the US – the Gemini project in Nevada – says it would not want to be having to buy solar modules and battery storage right now.

David Scaysbrook, the co-founder and joint managing partner of Quinbrook Infrastructure Partners, says there is huge variability in the pricing of solar modules and battery storage.

Quinbrook is behind the Gemini project around 50kms north of Las Vegas, which will include 690MW of large scale solar and 380MW/1320MWh of battery storage, with a 25 year contract to deliver power, particularly in evening peaks in summer.

In an interview with RenewEconomy’s Energy Insiders podcast, Scaysbrook says buyers of solar models are likely to pay 30 per cent more if they need to get hold of them in the next 12 months, and 40 per cent more for battery storage units.

“We’re looking at a huge variability at the moment in solar module pricing if you’re buying something for the next 12 months versus the next 36 months,” Scaysbrook tells Energy Insiders.

“Depending on when you need your modules over the next three years, the pricing varies very significantly. If it was today, your modules are costing you at least 30% more than what we were able to procure for Gemini.

“And on the battery side of things. It’s higher, it’s it’s more than 40% higher at the moment, if you need batteries right now, or in the next 12 months.

“So this is a particularly difficult and expensive period in the US. Not so not so everywhere else. But because of the duty issues and everything that we’ve had in the US it’s particularly expensive time to be procuring modules and batteries.

“But that will get better and it will ease later into next year. And going forward. It’s sort of projected to start returning towards where it was.”

Scaysbrook’s estimates are higher than those of most analysts, although those predictions tend to be based on world-wide average. BNEF, for instance, has warned of his amounts to a 7% year-on-year rise in the cost of new-build onshore wind and a 14% jump in the cost of building fixed-axis solar.

It’s not all gloom. Scaysbrook says that there is little to beat solar and battery storage in delivering cheap power and into the evening peaks. You can read more of that story here, and listen to the podcast in full here.

See also: “Nothing can beat it:” The rise and rise of solar and battery storage

And: Energy Insiders Podcast: Big solar and even bigger batteries