"In 2025, all of the batteries presented at SNEC Storage in Shanghai were LFP, a sign that this chemistry has established itself as the new standard," says Lionel Perret, head of the renewable energy sector at Planair.
For years, batteries were considered the weak link in the energy transition. They were associated with the environmental impacts related to cobalt and nickel extraction, with very dense NMC chemistries, with a lifespan judged too short — about 1,500 cycles, barely four years of daily use — as well as with a risk of explosion, every incident making the headlines.
This perception stands in stark contrast with the tolerance that fossil fuel risks still enjoy. The fire that paralyzed the downtown Neuchâtel parking lot on August 28, 2025, caused by an internal combustion engine car and not an electric one, is a perfect illustration: fossil risks are trivialized, but the slightest event involving a battery is dramatized. Much of these criticisms, however, already belong to the past.
Safety standards have evolved profoundly. The "screwdriver test" popularized by BYD illustrates this new generation of LFP batteries well: even when punctured, the cells maintain a controlled temperature, thus guaranteeing a high level of safety. LFP chemistry, based on lithium, iron and phosphate, is now established as an industry reference. Lithium is more abundant than other critical materials and the absence of cobalt and nickel limits several risks. The new Renault electric car is in fact equipped with it. Gradually, this LFP technology is asserting itself as the standard, including in electric mobility.
Unfortunately, a disinformation campaign continues in parallel. It is fueled by the threat that batteries represent on two key fronts for fossil energies:
It was in this context that I visited SNEC Storage in Shanghai, one of the global epicenters of storage. The city offers a concrete glimpse of a possible future: an almost entirely electrified mobility and streets of striking calm, whether the lights are red or green. The change in the soundscape is striking, as is the scale of the infrastructure dedicated to soft and shared mobility.
At the trade fair, the industrial vitality is striking. There are hundreds of rapidly expanding companies, often founded less than five years ago, entirely dedicated to batteries and photovoltaic inverters. Several already claim to be unicorns, with revenues approaching a billion dollars and more than 500 R&D engineers working to optimize standard kits of battery packs integrated into modular solutions.
Standardization is largely prevailing, marking large-scale industrialization rather than a new chemical revolution. At the base of the offering are small batteries of 1 to 2 kWh, plugged directly into an outlet and usable without an electrician's intervention for very simple needs. Then come modular residential solutions of 5 to 12 kWh, whose capacities keep increasing. It is also not uncommon to see private individuals equip themselves with 30 to 40 kWh in order to go beyond mere self-consumption and aim for a real flexibilization of their production.
Higher up the range, standardized cabinets of 100 to 500 kWh, robust, air-conditioned and with integrated redundancies, are ready to be added to large-scale photovoltaic installations. Finally, at the top of this chain, 5,000 kWh systems housed in 20-foot containers display extremely low unit costs, while the most advanced models — a bit more expensive — reach up to 9,000 kWh per container.
In 2025, all the batteries presented at the trade fair were LFP, a sign that this chemistry has established itself as the new norm. The most advanced technologies remain for the moment concentrated on the Chinese market, where many announcements are observed — but still few demonstrators — concerning sodium batteries or semi-solid electrodes.
Economically, costs generally sit around $70/kWh for the largest systems and about $200/kWh for smaller units. These levels redraw the economic balance of grids: once fixed costs are included, the price gaps between small and large installations ultimately remain modest. Thanks to their deployment simplicity, small batteries even have significant potential, particularly for modernizing existing grids.
Unlike photovoltaics, where building large plants allows strongly reducing ancillary costs, large-scale storage systems remain associated with high expenses in civil engineering, engineering and auxiliary equipment. In some cases, these peripheral costs weigh proportionally more than for small modular units, almost "plug & play". With such competitiveness, even at small scale, batteries thus help accelerate the decentralization of the energy system.
In China, the new safety rules targeting technologies deemed "flammable" will push the market to turn the page on old chemistries. On the world's largest automotive market, where 51.8% of vehicles sold are now fully electric, only LFP batteries and semi-solid technologies should retain a central place.
The effects of this shift are already being felt in Switzerland, but also in many other countries. Our projects in Polynesia — where the islands still depend entirely on fossil fuels — provide a concrete illustration: there we are replacing diesel generators with systems combining solar and smart batteries. In many configurations, these installations provide a baseload supply even more regular than a nuclear power plant. They reach up to 95% local autonomy thanks to the solar-battery coupling alone.
In Australia and other pioneering regions of the world, storage already allows whole days with more than 100% renewable energy injected into the grid, some production peaks even approaching 200%. This transformation does not always appear in classic electricity price statistics, but it nevertheless translates, for tens of millions of people, into more competitive energy directly at the socket, often cheaper than that produced by non-renewable systems.
A new technological wave is preparing with the arrival of sodium batteries. An agreement between Korea and China aims to accelerate their deployment, and several factories, sized to meet global demand, are under construction. These batteries, non-flammable and made of abundant materials, promise up to 20,000 cycles. In such a context, it will become difficult to find any remaining arguments to twist in order to contest the relevance of batteries.
Combined with renewables, these technologies further strengthen the robustness and competitiveness of the emerging energy model. Disinformation campaigns targeting storage and renewables now appear as an attempt to gain a reprieve in the face of a decentralized, industrial and economically dominant technological wave, which will leave only a few very specific fossil uses.
This article has been automatically translated using AI. If you notice any errors, please don't hesitate to contact us.
At the end of November, an expert report commissioned by the Energy Foundation claimed that the Gösgen nuclear power plant had been affected by a safety flaw since it began operating in 1979. We discuss the issue with Andreas Pautz and Mathieu Hursin, two specialists working at EPFL's LRS.
In "Une Constitution pour la transition écologique," Marcel Hänggi proposes rethinking the Constitution in depth in order to better protect both the environment and democratic institutions in the face of upcoming ecological crises.
The scientists of the GlaMBIE project estimate that between the beginning of the 21st century and today, glaciers have lost between 2% and 39% of their ice mass at the regional scale, and about 5% at the global scale.
"Beyond the widely discussed diplomatic deadlocks, COP30 revealed that the transition will no longer be played out in final communiqués, but in the ability of economies to measure, finance and deploy real transformations," explains Sarah Perreard, co-director of Earth Action.