My bet (with myself) is that cables will probably win in the contest between cables and batteries.
If your line losses on a 15,000 km subsea cable are only 50% then power that costs $20 / MWH to produce in Chile comes off the cable costing $40 / MWH plus the cost of the cable - that means the cable can cost $60 / MWH and still be in the right ball park of cost for power.
I reckon we are a lot lot closer to $60 / MWH cables than we are to huge batteries. Not necessarily 15,000 km long subsea cables but long distance cables.
Not saying that batteries won't eventually become cheaper than cables but once the cables are built it will be a long time before they are replaced.
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If your line losses on a 15,000 km subsea cable are only 50% then power that costs $20 / MWH to produce in Chile comes off the cable costing $40 / MWH plus the cost of the cable - that means the cable can cost $60 / MWH and still be in the right ball park of cost for power.
I reckon we are a lot lot closer to $60 / MWH cables than we are to huge batteries. Not necessarily 15,000 km long subsea cables but long distance cables.
Not saying that batteries won't eventually become cheaper than cables but once the cables are built it will be a long time before they are replaced.