The only plausible reason I can come up with is that the 'savings' are very hard to attribute correctly, but then I still cant explain why no one before today noticed the potential savings and took a chance.
Anyone with experience in the industry have any thoughts?
(b) Battery prices (and pricing for the balance of the system) have dropped pretty rapidly, I'm not sure why you're claiming otherwise. There have been recent years where these systems have dropped in price by ~25%[1]. That's not insignificant.
[1] https://www.utilitydive.com/news/not-so-fast-battery-prices-...
Was the decision taken years ago? This is the 100 days or free battery. But yes I accept the power companies may have been slow. But still it isn't just Australia that was slow, its the US, Germany, Denmark, the world.
Not exactly.
Australia's high prices were not due to a technology failure, but a regulatory one. The power generators were manipulating the market causing extremely high peak prices, and essentially being allowed to get away with it. Most other countries don't allow the market to wildly fluctuate so much, so the payback is far longer. Think decades and not years.
Not many investments offer that rate of return.
You may be right to suggest it may not be competitive in other locations though. I don't know.
https://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/tesla-fulfills-...
EU is pretty good in that regard, it demonopolized the energy market, so if you build this battery yourself on your land you can just entered the market and start selling balancing offers. You will easily outcompete traditional producers and consumers on that market if the article is right.
The widespread rule of thumb was - batteries on grid level don't work. Seems this isn't true anymore.
I wonder if there was even the capability to manufacture such a large order at the given price point before Tesla built their gigafactory.