Apr 23, 2025 · 20m · catalyst
What’s next for the battery storage boom? [partner content]
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gold bands on the timeline = statements, start to end. Hover to read, click to jump. CC turns on captions
Powen CEO Jeff Waters joins host Stephen Lacey to discuss the explosive growth of the U.S. utility-scale energy storage sector, analyzing how plummeting battery costs, surging AI power demand, and evolving trade policies are reshaping modern grid infrastructure.
How this conversation actually went
Every chapter scored 0–10 on four independent dynamics. Hover any point for the reasoning behind the score. How this is scored →
Shayle as informed peer 4.8 Guest teaching 3.8 Guest disagreement 1.0 Shayle pushing back 0.0
speaking balance: gold is Shayle, purple is the guest (3 minute bins)
Sharpest disagreement ▶ 1:36 Calling anti-China protectionism a ridiculous notion
Waters dismisses domestic political rhetoric against Chinese partnerships, bluntly framing exclusion as an unviable strategy for U.S. battery expansion.
Hardest push from Shayle ▶ 1:29 Pressing on domestic ownership of the battery supply chainLacey asks what the Asian semiconductor playbook implies for America directly owning more of the battery supply chain.
Biggest teaching moment ▶ 4:45 Explaining the multi-year latency of gas turbines and SMRsWaters contextualizes load growth by highlighting that SMRs and gas turbines ordered today will not deliver until 2030 or later, leaving batteries as the only immediate solution.
Shayle holds their own ▶ 8:06 Classifying the three dominant utility-scale deployment modelsLacey demonstrates domain mastery by structuring the market into market trading, co-location with renewables, and standalone grid interconnect models.
the scores for every segment, with the reasoning behind each
| Chapter | Topic | Shayle as informed peer | Guest teaching | Guest disagreement | Shayle pushing back | Why |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Applying the Asian Semiconductor Playbook to U.S. Battery Manufacturing | 3 | 4 | 4 | 0 | Waters rejects the common domestic policy argument against Chinese participation in U.S. battery storage, calling the idea of excluding Chinese tech licensing or investment ridiculous. | |
| Introduction to Powen and Utility Scale Grid Storage Dynamics | 5 | 4 | 0 | 0 | Lacey brings specific deployment statistics showing quarterly gigawatt growth, while Waters details how data center power surge cannot be satisfied by natural gas or SMRs due to multi-year lead times. | |
| Expanding Project Sizing and Renewable Co-Location Deployment Trends | 6 | 3 | 0 | 0 | Lacey categorizes the three primary deployment models and tracks project scaling metrics from past conversations. Waters details the shift toward co-located storage and interconnect optimization. | |
| Regional Market Hotspots and Emerging Clean Energy Frontiers | 5 | 4 | 0 | 0 | Lacey asks about regional expansion and falling balance of system costs. Waters draws on his historical solar background to explain why battery pricing could decline further to $25/kWh. | |
| Tariff Headwinds, IRA Uncertainties, and Developer Risk Dynamics | 4 | 4 | 1 | 0 | Lacey probes the market anxiety surrounding election reconciliation and tariffs. Waters explains how risk is shifted down the chain from off-takers to developers, integrators, and ultimately ratepayers. | |
| Clean Energy Resilience and the Critical Need for Policy Certainty | 6 | 4 | 1 | 0 | Lacey outlines projected multi-year deployment figures and chemistry shifts. Waters details duration boundaries between LFP and sodium, alongside emerging grid cybersecurity priorities. |
Statements from this episode (16)
Waters: US energy storage success requires partnering with Chinese companies
“The only way we're going to get anywhere in the U.S. Market with storage is by partnering with the Chinese.”
Waters: US can gain full battery storage capability in 5-10 years
“If you do that and you partner it up with building the infrastructure like the Japanese did for semis, You can result, you know, in, in five to 10 years from now with the U.S. Having that same capability.”
Waters: SMRs will not be a viable power source until the mid-2030s
“The challenge there is that between permitting and technology development that needs to happen, you're probably talking about, you know, mid 20 thirties before you see that become a real play.”
Waters: Natural gas turbines ordered today have lead times until 2030
“You know, turbines today for natural gas, you know, if you place an order today, it's, you're not going to see that until, let's say, twenty-thirty.”
Waters: U.S. energy storage is projected to reach 170 GW by 2033
“It's expected, just to give you a broad number, by 2033, the market is projected in the U.S. To hit about a 170 gigawatts of storage.”
Waters: LFP battery costs fell nearly 50% in two years
“So the cost for, you know, LFP batteries have come down nearly 50% over the course of the last year or two.”
Waters: Storage market trading softened amid ERCOT and CAISO saturation
“The market trading piece has softened a little bit, just because those markets have been reasonably saturated, both in ERCOT and, in CAISO.”
Waters: New York, PJM, and MISO will see accelerating storage growth
“And, you know, right now, I would say, you know, New York, ah, PJM, MISO, those are all regions where we expect to see a lot more growth. Than we've seen historically.”
LFP battery pricing could drop to $25 per kWh within years
“There's a decent likelihood we'll continue to see pricing go down. You know, I've heard some claims that you could see it go down as far as, you know, from 50 dollars down to even 25 dollars over the course of the next couple of years. I think it's realistic t…”
Waters: LFP battery supply chain investment is spreading to Indonesia and Morocco
“I mean, the supply chains for LFPs have been largely within China. You're seeing that now spread more broadly. So Indonesia, Morocco are all areas now where you're seeing a lot more investment going into it.”
Tariff risk pushed down the supply chain is causing energy storage delays
“And effectively, what's happening now is you're seeing a bit of a push from off-takers to try and push more of the tariff risk onto developers, and developers trying to push it more onto you know, guys like us, like the integrators and the cell suppliers. And …”
Waters: Tariff Costs and IRA Cuts Will Likely Hit Utility Ratepayers
“And so then what you'll see is anything around tariffs or IRA incentives getting cut will likely get passed on to the rate payers. That's my best guess from what I'm seeing.”
Median utility-scale storage projects will hit 2 GWh in two years
“I would expect, if we were to even talk two years from now, I think two gigawatt hours would probably be the size of projects that will be more the median than even the maybe 800 megawatt hour that you have today.”
Waters: LFP chemistry will remain dominant in battery storage as costs fall
“LFP will, I think, remain dominant in that timeframe, just because you're going to see the cost curves continue to drive down.”
Waters: 8- to 12-hour storage applications will emerge and surpass LFP
“But you will start to see more eight-hour, twelve-hour type applications emerging. And I think as that happens, you'll see other technologies kick into gear that will enable that better than LFP.”
Powin CEO: US 75 GW storage projections through 2028 are conservative
“That, I think, is the only thing that's going to stay in the way of storage getting adopted, and I think the numbers that, that, you know, we've been citing, I think those are conservative. I think they factor in a lot of these artificial barriers that could c…”