batteries

the largest battery company in the world is no longer just about batteries

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The Chinese company specialized in the development of batteries has published results for the first quarter of 2026 that have left analysts speechless. Not because they are good, but because no one saw them coming. And the income has exceeded the forecasts of several analysis firms by 40%. The margin of error is so large that it only shows the obvious: that CATL It has long ceased to be just a battery company. What the numbers say. In the first quarter of 2026, CATL had a turnover of 129.1 billion yuan (about $18.9 billion), 52.5% more than in the same period of the previous year, according to they count from Reuters. Net profit grew 48.5% to 20.7 billion yuan. Analysts expected revenue growth of 35.7% and profit growth of 20.9%. The reality is that the numbers almost double the estimates. If the context of the successful year they had in 2025 is added, the image is just as groundbreaking, since according to the annual report The company’s own revenue that year reached 423.7 billion yuan, with a growth of 17%, and net profit rose 42%. Why analysts They have failed so much. Market consensus continued to treat CATL as a supplier of cells for electric cars. The problem is that this approach ignores two movements that are redefining the company. The first: energy storage, a business with higher margins than vehicle batteries, already represented around a quarter of the product the company shipped in the first quarter. According to data Production data collected by Hello China Tech, in April storage had climbed to 41.3% of total cell production, up from less than 20% a year earlier. The second movement: internationalization. Approximately a third of CATL’s revenue already comes from outside China. A Bet that explains everything. Energy storage is not a segment that CATL has joined by inertia. It is the logical consequence of a thesis: the world needs to store renewable energy on a massive scale. The war in Iran has skyrocketed global energy costs and accelerated demand for renewables, making storage systems critical infrastructure. CATL, which already led that market with a global share of 30.4% in 2025, according to SNE Research (for the fifth consecutive year), has arrived at the exact moment with the necessary capacity. And its shipments of batteries for storage have grown by 80% year-on-year in 2025. Europe as a lever for internationalization. The Debrecen plant, in Hungary, went into mass production during the first quarter of 2026. An investment of 7.3 billion euros to supply Mercedes-Benz, BMW, Stellantis and Volkswagen, with a planned capacity of 100 gigawatt-hours annually and a planned workforce of 9,000 people. This factory is proof that CATL is not content with being a supplier that exports cells, but rather a manufacturer with an industrial presence in the markets it serves. At home, dominating like never before. At the same time, CATL has reached a milestone in China that it had not achieved for five years. According to data from the Chinese Passenger Car Association collected According to CarNewsChina, its production share of electric vehicle batteries in the domestic market exceeded 50% in the first quarter of 2026. In the NMC (nickel-manganese-cobalt) type battery segment, that share reaches 81.6%. And in the LFP (lithium-iron-phosphate) segment, where there is more competition, it reaches 41%, the highest level in four years. The world’s second largest manufacturer, BYD, fell to 13.4% global share, from 16% a year earlier. What CATL is today, beyond batteries. The company itself has been trying to change the story for some time. In your 2025 annual reportstates its ambition to become “a leading global zero-carbon technology company.” It may sound like corporate rhetoric, but it is worth noting that CATL has storage systems deployed in nearly 2,300 projects around the world. Its batteries power artificial intelligence data centers, including SenseTime’s in Shanghai, which the company says reduces electricity consumption by more than 10 million kilowatt-hours annually. It also has subsidiaries in the electric aviation sector and solutions for maritime transport zero emissions. It operates more than 1,000 battery exchange stations for passenger cars and more than 300 for heavy trucks. And it is building what it describes as the world’s first zero-carbon off-grid industrial park, in Shandong. ANDThe market has not yet it has finished processing. It’s not all good news. Morningstar analyst Vincent Sun warns that the automakers’ strategy of diversifying suppliers and cutting costs could “dilute CATL’s pricing power and put pressure on its unit profit.” When you are the dominant supplier, customers have incentives to reduce their dependence. Here it would be necessary to see if CATL’s diversification towards storage, energy services and internationalization builds a sufficient barrier. Cover image | CATL In Xataka | China and the US are dancing the AI ​​dance. And more and more they dance ‘agarraos’

A user has been powering his house with 1,000 laptop batteries and solar panels for 10 years. Others are already trying to copy the idea

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Second Life Storage is one of those places that seems to belong to another era. In the era of Reddit and Discord, this is a forum, one dedicated to a single topic: batteries. One of its users is Glubux, and it has been sharing progress on a most curious DIY project for years: a house powered by more than 1,000 batteries. The key is that they are recycled laptop batteries. And he has created a school. Glubux Powerwall. On November 9, 2019, Glubux opened a forum entry in which he shared some photos and detailed his project: he had started collecting laptop batteries years ago, he had collected about 650 and was doing tests to check stability, performance and possibilities. Little by little he was sharing news such as the packs – cells – that he was creating with dozens of interconnected batteries with a great objective: to power the house with standard lithium batteries. These cells are not created by chance: after dissecting each laptop battery, it classifies the units by capacity and rebuilds them into stable modules. This is how it started in 2017 | Photo: Glubux The idea was to create a large system that would work together like a conventional battery, but using those recycled ‘batteries’. He tried it and ended up connecting several packs to the home power. Less than a month later, Glubux commented that it had even successfully connected a vacuum cleaner for a total of 1,200 W of power and that there were no symptoms of heating. It was time to move on. This is how it was in 2024 | Photo: Glubux The shed. But of course, if batteries have taught us anything, it is that handling them is complicated and dangerous if something goes wrong. No matter how much care we take, something so homemade is likely to fail at some point, which could start a major fire. Having something like this inside the house is crazy, so Glubux created a very small shed on his plot, but enough to house the growing collection of more than 1,000 batteries. Last year we already commented that the latest of their reports was that none had shown signs of deterioration (such as swelling) and, after eight years, they had not had to change any cells. Now, his house was running on solar panels that sent power to homemade recycled battery cells. Photo: Glubux Feeding… everything. After expanding the solar installation (24 panels with 440 W), the storage capacity increased to 56 kWh and the system, which operates at 24 volts to feed A 3 kVA converter can power the house with its lights and appliances without problem. But it is not the only thing, since it also charges both a Tesla and an electric Nissan. Creating school. Glubux hasn’t participated in his thread for a while, but that doesn’t mean he’s dead. Other users have been sharing their adventures when creating similar systems. Some were even more veteran and had more batteries, and the most interesting thing is that they have created a space in which advice is given about the cells, the capacity of each of the cells or how to join batteries so that the systems are stable. Other similar projects | Photo: Daniel88 Not so homemade. These projects are almost as exciting as finding yourself in 2026 a furo so rudimentary that it still has an active community, but it must be said that powering the house with a wall of conventional batteries is not so exotic. In fact, Panasonic recently said it was reaching the limit of its capacity to produce battery cells for data centers. These are cells very similar to those of the Glubux project although, obviously, initially created to power systems such as data center racks. They are still systems made up of packs made up of hundreds of ‘batteries’. And now I can only wonder if Glubux’s silence is because it is building its own data center next to the shed. Images | Glubux, Daniel88

Data centers have eaten up the world’s RAM. Now they threaten to eat the batteries

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If the question is “what are data centers hungry for,” the answer is a simple “yes.” We hadn’t talked about the RAM memory crisis not because would have finishedbut because it was nonsense keep repeating it. The summary is that things are still as bad as they were a few weeks ago and, although the machines are at full capacity to create more, everything is going to the same place: the AI ​​platforms of the data centers. But it is no longer that they have broken the market for RAM, SSD, hard drives and everything that has to do with chips: it is that they are now going after batteries. The Panasonic case. The Japanese giant advertisement a few hours ago its plan to triple its lithium-ion cell production capacity. They are going to expand their facilities dedicated to this, but they will also adapt some of their manufacturing plants for elements for the automotive industry to manufacture more batteries. All the extra batteries they can make will be few, to the point that they not only propose the change for Japanese plants: also for foreign ones like the one in Kansas. Because? The short answer is because of AI. The long answer is that AI can’t stop working for even a second, and that’s why computers need backup power sources. That energy comes from batteries that are installed between the racks and which, in the event of any outage or specific peak, they ‘pull’ in order to continue operating. And since the equipment requires an insane amount of energy to operate, many, many backup batteries must be made. They are still modules with hundreds of “stacks” that are embedded in the racks All sold. The forecast is such that the Japanese company estimates that, for the next fiscal year, it can sell batteries worth 800,000 million yen, about 5,000 million dollars. It would quadruple its current sales and that implies something else: everything is sold. Its customers have already bought 80% of Panasonic’s output, leaving non-customers to fight for just a fifth of the volume. That will increase prices, generate shortages and cause the same thing that is happening with RAM and other components: there are no units, prices skyrocket, companies see that there is demand and allocate their production to creating that product and the consumer market suffers the consequences. It’s exactly the same thing we’ve seen with HDDs, with Seagate and Western Digital pointing out that what they were going to produce during the next few months was already sold. And it has also happened with RAM. The situation with them became so desperate that the main manufacturers have begun to ask for payments three years in advance. Because as the boss of SMIC – one of the largest foundries in China – pointed out a few days ago, everyone wants to have the infrastructure of the next decade by… yesterday. Supercapacitors. Aside from the “bad” news, Panasonic is also working on something new. Compared to traditional capacitors, the Japanese company is developing supercapacitors for data centers. These are capacitors that can store more energy, but also deliver it more slowly. They are denser than batteries and are expected to be high-fidelity elements to support data center equipment during outages or peak loads. They wait have them ready by 2027. The renewables. In the end, these Panasonic batteries (and other manufacturers) are simple safety elements to ensure that uninterrupted flow of power in the hyperscalers’ racks. How does it affect us? Well, because the capacitors and equipment manufactured by Panasonic are also found in consumer hardware and if they now focus on data centers, the same thing will happen as with NAND chips and everything that uses a memory chip. And, in the background, there are also the most conventional batteries to store a large amount of energy from renewables. Because we have already mentioned that data centers consume a lot, so much so that even has turned to coal, gas is a common resource and there are companies that are opening its nuclear power plants. But if you opt for renewables, it will be necessary to equip data centers with tens of hundreds of batteries capable of absorbing the energy blow. In fact, there are already car battery manufacturers that they are converting. In short: everything bad… except for companies that manufacture those components. Images | panasonic In Xataka | If you were thinking about setting up a NAS to create your own cloud, we have bad news: AI has other plans

MG reveals the secrets of MG SolidCore Battery, the first semi-solid batteries for electric cars that will arrive in Europe

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Without the light effects that precede a big announcement but with the security of someone who knows they have something good on their hands. MG met us in Frankfurt, met us on the outskirts of the city and put it before our eyes. The car and its tools. The weapons to continue gaining ground in a battle that seems long. Because with a quick presentation and a talk with its managers, the Chinese company revealed the two great advances with which it intends to continue gaining ground in the European automobile market: a new hybrid system and, above all, its semi-solid state batteries that will arrive with the new MG4 Urban EVa kind of evolution of the current MG4 Electric with which it will coexist in the market. In 2025, MG was the brand with Chinese capital that achieved the best results in Europe. Also in our country, where it reached 45,163 registered units. The formula for success has been based on the launch of vehicles for the access range. Cars at low prices, very spacious and equipped. But, above all, very competitive if we compare them with the competition. The strategy is paying off. Both in vehicles with combustion engines, where the brand does not have to pay tariffs, and with the MG4 Electric, which became among the best sellers in many European countries. The recipe at that time was simple: attractive price, good interior space and versions with a lot of power. Now, MG seeks to take a qualitative leap. Continue convincing and gaining ground in those who are undecided. But, above all, they bring technology that is currently not available to any other brand. Some semi-solid batteries to capture the market Our gazes, therefore, were pointed at the stage where the brand representatives were passing, but what was truly important was behind us. There, behind a curtain, the new MG4 EV Urban, a compact electric car that wants to position itself as the most advanced electric car of the moment. At least if we pay attention to its battery. At 4.44 meters long, the new MG electric car is a canonical compactor, of those that continue to triumph in the European market. To test it we will have to wait a few months but we were able to sit in it for the first time and see first-hand that we are facing a qualitative leap in quality in the interior. The car does not represent an aesthetic revolution on the outside and, of course, is less striking than the current MG4 Electric. But packaging does win. Inside, materials have improved and the perception of quality has risen. The screens are accompanied by physical buttons to control the climate and volume with wheels and controls that offer good touch. The sound of the speakers surprised me with their good quality (yes, I have to say that I don’t have the best ear among the staff). Xataka). And it has interesting details such as the controls that we already saw in the MGS6 EV on the steering wheel or a slightly rough mobile phone wireless charging surface so that the phone does not move. The new MG4 We will talk about all this in greater detail when we can get our hands on it to taste it in motion. Until then we will delve into the technology with which they want to hit the table with batteries that they already mass-produce. They are called “MG SolidCore Battery”. Because the MG4 EV Urban will be the first electric car in Europe to use semi-solid state batteries. With the promise that the car will not face a superlative extra cost. On the contrary, they told us that it will move in figures similar to the current ones. At the moment, the MG bestseller is around 38,000 euros but with the brand’s aid and discounts it is currently below 28,000 euros. What are these semi-solid batteries? It is the first step before jumping to solid batteries, the great promise of the electric car. They are energy accumulators that improve each and every one of the current aspects of LFP or NCM batteries, the most common on the market. Currently, these batteries use electrolytes that use liquid electrolytes to move lithium ions between the electrodes and thus generate electricity. With each discharge, lithium ions travel from the anode to the cathode through the liquid electrolyte. There the electricity is produced that is used by the motors. With recharging, the electrolyte takes the opposite path. Solid state batteries promise to forget about this liquid. This will allow, if the technique advances sufficiently, to have batteries with very ambitious ranges (more than 1,000 kilometers are targeted), in a reduced size and with more powerful charging and discharging capacity. And maintaining their security. The semi-solid state battery is the intermediate step. MG claims that the electrolyte liquid takes up around 20% of a conventional battery right now. With its new batteries, that liquid barely reaches 5%. Solidifying that space allows them to increase the nominal voltage of the battery and therefore also improve energy density. MG points out that these new batteries reach a density of 400 Wh/kg. Part of the secret is that the mobility of lithium ions increases their possibilities, they go from moving in a one-dimensional (LFP) or two-dimensional (NCM) to three-dimensional movement using the solid electrolyte. What does this translate into? The batteries of the new MG4 Urban EV will be smaller but will be able to travel the same number of kilometers as the current model. Although no specific figures have been confirmed, the leap forward should be qualitative because It is an evolution that feeds on itself.. If the battery is denser, it can be smaller to travel the same number of kilometers. At the same time, the weight of this accumulator is lower and the car is more efficient, resulting in better consumption data and, therefore, autonomy. But it also has other types of advantages such as less … Read more

the plan to implement 16,000 MW of batteries to save renewable surplus

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Spain is a world power in wind and solar energy: the graphics say it where it fares quite well against much larger countries and also the records he is breaking year by year. None of the world’s major economies came close to level of integration of renewables like Spain and Portugal already in 2024. In fact, there is so much that it reaches unbalance the electrical grid and what has he done to him become an export power. And yet, the blackout of April 28, 2025 He put Spain in front of an uncomfortable truth: I didn’t have enough batteries to accompany the boom of its renewables. So Spain is doing its homework: it is the second country with the most battery storage projects in the world, only behind the United States, according to this Ernst & Young report that analyzes the evolution and perspectives of the sector. Why is it important. Because the implementation of enough BESS would end one of the big problems with renewables: they provide energy intermittently, not on demand. If there is no storage, the excess is wasted (exporting is an option, but France is in the middle). Batteries are what is missing for the energy transition to be a reality, a reality that implies achieving energy sovereignty. On the other hand, with a storage system sized to the capacity, the batteries would function as a blackout-proof airbag in a matter of milliseconds in the event of possible failures. Finally, the possibility of being able to store energy when it is cheap (during very sunny hours) and release it would help alleviate electricity bills. Brief notes on the BESS. Energy storage batteries for the electrical grid or BESS (Battery Energy Storage System) They are not just huge mobile phone batteries, but rather they are storage systems the size of industrial containers (such as those on ships) packed with electrochemical cells with integrated electronics to inject or absorb energy into the grid in real time. They work as if they were a kind of shock absorber to store excess energy that is released later, when necessary. Inside there is a kind of management brain to control its status, power inverters so that the energy is usable on a domestic and industrial scale, and control software that decides when charging or discharging occurs. It’s time. The 2025 blackout was a friendly reminder of the situation, but it also helps that the price of lithium-ion batteries has dropped drastically: from 2014 to 2024 it fell 73% and continues to plummet: now it is at a minimum of 78 dollars per megawatt-hour. This collapse in costs is working as a catalyst for investment. The Spain of batteries, in figures. The EY report speaks of a planned business volume of 2,000 million euros in the form of projects under development until 2030 to store 16,000 MW. By then, the National Integrated Energy and Climate Plan hope to have 22,500 MW of storage. The Expansion medium puts This data in perspective: those 16 GW represent a 29% share of everything projected on a global scale. Only the United States exceeds that figure. To make it possible, there is already a committed public investment: 750 million euros come from the Ministry for the Ecological Transition and the Demographic Challenge, which is added to the 699 million European funds. The ball is in the Administration’s court. Everything mentioned so far are projects and not realities, that is, having these storage systems plugged into the electrical grid. Despite the volume of business and public aid, it is the economic viability that will make these projects go from paper to materialization. More specifically, the sector is waiting for the Spanish Government to develop a regulatory framework on how payment will be for these infrastructures and the service they provide to the network. These rewards will define their long-term profitability and therefore, whether companies decide to execute them or not. In Xataka | Spain’s electricity market has broken: there is so much energy left over that we are using the reservoirs like giant batteries In Xataka | Andalusia is going to become the “battery” of Spain: why it will keep almost half of European funds for batteries Cover | RawPixel

the price of storage batteries has reached its minimum

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For years, detractors of the energy transition have clung to a seemingly immovable argument: the sun and the wind are intermittent, and saving that energy for when it is not blowing or it is night is economically unviable. This mismatch between supply and demand generates the phenomenon known as “duck curve”where solar energy is abundant during the day but drops drastically just when nighttime consumption skyrockets. To balance this balance, battery storage stands as the definitive solution. Today, that last bastion against the total viability of clean energy has just collapsed. The last piece of the renewable puzzle now fits, but its lowering price has uncovered a much more complex problem: a fierce geopolitical race to control the materials that make this technological miracle possible. The economic barrier has fallen. If we take a look at the data, the graph of the cost of batteries shows a historic plummet. According to the report Levelized Cost of Electricity 2026 of BloombergNEFstoring energy in four-hour projects is today 27% cheaper than a year ago, bottoming out at $78 per megawatt-hour (MWh). Never since records began in 2009 has saving electricity been so accessible. And this positive anomaly is supported by three very clear pillars: The reduction in prices of battery packs. Increased competition between different manufacturers. Excess manufacturing capacity coming from the electric vehicle market. Fuels pay the price. While clean technologies become cheaper, fossil fuels suffer the opposite effect. Driven by the voracious electrical demand of new data centers, new gas plants have seen their equipment become more expensive. In fact, the report of bloombergNEF highlights that the global cost of electricity for combined cycle gas turbines has risen by 16%, reaching a record of 102 dollars/MWh. The market has already ruled: in the United States and Canada, wind energy has displaced gas as the cheapest source for new generation, while renewables already exceed the operating costs of existing fossil fuel plants in key Asia-Pacific markets. The elephant in the room. If global costs have plunged, it is largely because China has flooded the market with massive overproduction. This overwhelming figure, however, was born of a systemic dysfunction. As the analyzes from two years ago warnedChinese provincial regulations forced solar parks to install batteries by law, which led to the accumulation of systems that were barely used due to the lack of incentives in the electricity market. Beijing achieved its goal: scaling production to a level unattainable by the rest of the world. Today, in 2026, that inertia has mutated into an industrial tsunami. According to the recent report of BloombergNEFthe current price collapse has been accelerated by a new factor: excess manufacturing capacity coming from the electric vehicle market. The fierce competition between Chinese manufacturers and the overproduction of car batteries has ended up drastically making large-scale systems cheaper, forever transforming the economics of the global electrical grid. The “brain” of the network and the gallium trap. Having millions of cheap batteries is useless without a system that manages them. Storing energy is only the first step; To feed it into the grid in a stable manner, immense power inverters are needed. These devices function as the electronic “brain” of the facility, composed of logic modules and high-performance chips that decide in milliseconds when to absorb surpluses and when to release them. And it is here, in semiconductors capable of withstanding these extreme voltages without melting, where the real battle is fought. For decades, the West operated under a mirage. As analyst Gillian Tett points outWestern elites assumed that making things was low-margin “dirty work” that could be outsourced. They became obsessed with software as China quietly built the physical infrastructure of the 21st century. Today, Beijing has what investor Craig Tindale calls “processing sovereignty”: controls 90% of rare earths and an overwhelming 98% of gallium. The latter is that irreplaceable strategic metal for advanced semiconductors that manage energy. After flooding the market for years to suffocate Western mining, China imposed export controls, causing its price to triple to reach historical records above $1,500 per kilo. From “red mud” to chips: the Western counterattack. For the United States, this is already a matter of national survival. The response of Washington and its allies has been to design an ambitious plan to become independent from Beijing by extracting gallium directly from industrial waste, known as “red mud”. The strategy It is an intercontinental triangle: In Australia, the Wagerup refinery has teamed up with the US and Japan to filter gallium from bauxite processing, aiming to cover 10% of global demand without opening new mines. In Louisiana, the Gramercy plant has received $150 million from the Pentagon to process its own aluminum waste to meet total U.S. demand. But the economic risk is enormous. Experts warn that the gallium market is dangerously small, and if Western production increases too quickly, prices could collapse. To protect these investments against dumping Chinese, the White House has deployed the Project Vaulta strategic reserve of 12 billion dollars. The human bottleneck. Even with all the money on the table, the West facing a problem that cannot be solved by printing banknotes: the “human bottleneck”. After decades of deindustrialization, Western engineers and workers who knew how to operate complex chemical plants and foundries have retired. Reconstructing that physical sovereignty requires expert hands that, today, are scarce on this side of the world. However, in this interdependent world, China It also has a critical vulnerability. Despite its monopoly on materials, its industry is still forced to import almost all of the advanced logic modules that control turbines and networks in real time. Beijing has the factories and the minerals, but the West still has the “brains” and the fine chemistry that makes complex systems work. A future with many edges. The economic viability of a world powered 100% by renewables is already an irrefutable reality. Batteries are no longer the economic brake on the transition. However, we have escaped the geological tyranny of oil only to discover … Read more

There is so much energy left over that we are using the reservoirs like giant batteries

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Not long ago, the news in Spain was the dust, the dry land and the anguish of starving reservoirs. Today, the story has taken a turn as violent as it was unexpected. The background sound in the Spanish electrical system is no longer the drought alarm, but the roar of the floodgates opening to release excess water. What the meteorology has given in the form of torrential rains during this beginning of 2026 has become a financial paradox: there is so much energy left over that the market, designed to manage scarcity, has begun to show its seams in the face of abundance. The price of electricity has not only dropped; has been broken. A perfect storm. And this time, literally. A succession of Atlantic storms (Goretti, Harry, Ingrid…) and an extraordinarily rainy start to the year They have brought the hydraulic reserve to 77.3%. This scenario has forced hydroelectric plants to work on a piece-rate basis. It is not an option: many are “flow-through” plants, which means they cannot store water and must turbine it to avoid overflows, flooding the electrical grid with cheap energy. This situation has drawn two opposite realities. On the one hand, for households with a regulated (PVPC) or indexed rate, the saying “year of snow, year of goods” is literally fulfilled. The bill plummets thanks to the massive entry of renewables. On the other hand, nuclear energy, designed to operate 24/7 as a base load, has become the collateral victim. The technical data of Red Eléctrica corroborate this trend. In the generation records of February 12, it is observed how nuclear energy remains on a flat line of about 5,770 MW, but operating in an environment where wind energy exceeds 17,000 MW at peak hours, pushing prices down and displacing other technologies. The mechanics of a “broken” market. The excess of water and wind has caused the price of electricity to “break” during the hours of lowest consumption. We’re no longer just talking about the solar “duck curve” at noon; now zero or negative prices also appear at dawn. According to The Spanishin the first ten days of February, 69 hours were accumulated with zero or negative prices. The system is so saturated with energy that it needs “sponges” to absorb it. Here pumping hydroelectricity comes into play (using electricity to raise water from a lower reservoir to a higher one), which acts as the system’s large battery. REE reports They are revealing about it.. During the early hours of February 12, the system recorded massive pumping consumption to prevent the collapse of the network, reaching consumption values ​​(energy withdrawn from the network) greater than 1,800 MW: At 04:05 on February 12, pumping consumption was -1,850 MW. At 04:55 hours, it remained at -1,848 MW. This confirms that Spain is using its reversible reservoirs to “drink” the excess electricity produced by wind and flowing water while demand sleeps. An x-ray of the price. As a result, the wholesale price has plummeted. According to Expansionthe average price for this February 13 is €4.38/MWh in the wholesale market (pool), a ridiculous figure compared to previous years. However, the market presents a time “trap” for the consumer. Although the average is low, the volatility is extreme. OMIE graphs show a flat curve close to zero for almost the entire day, which shoots up vertically at dusk. The valley: On February 12, the price remained practically flat and low for most of the day. The peak (The forbidden hour): When the sun goes down and the photovoltaics stop providing, and coinciding with dinner, the price skyrockets. Between 8:00 p.m. and 9:00 p.m. the most expensive section is concentratedexceeding €35/MWh in the wholesale market, which translates into more than €170/MWh for the final consumer due to tolls and system charges. For the intelligent consumer, the “bargain hours” are now between 3:00 p.m. and 4:00 p.m. (with negative prices in the pool of -€0.03/MWh) and during the early hours of the morning. Forecasts. Is this an anecdote or a trend? The experts consulted by The Energy Newspaper, like Javier Revuelta from the consulting firm AFRYthey believe it is structural. Futures markets (forwards) for March and April are already trading lower (€40 and €25 respectively). The forecast is that 2026 will close with an average price of around €55/MWh. This strongly reopens the energy debate: if renewable energy is capable of covering demand at zero prices, the economic viability of maintaining the nuclear park—which cannot stop and start at will—becomes complicated. The “problem” of full reservoirs is, in reality, the sign that the marginalist electricity market creaks when the raw material is free and abundant. For the citizen, the lesson is clear: electricity is almost free, but only if you know how to look at the clock before turning on the switch. Image | freepik and freepik Xataka | The reservoir that would “never be filled” is opening its floodgates: 23 years later, the largest swamp in Western Europe is completely full

Electric car battery makers are retooling to make batteries… for AI data centers

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In the United States there are a slowdown in the electric vehicle industry, which has caused more and more manufacturers in the sector to convert their business. According to account Financial Times, ten North American factories that produced batteries for electric cars are allocating a good part of their production to energy storage systems for AI data centers. It is the latest industry to readjust around artificial intelligence. The change of course. The media shares data from the consulting firm CRU, which states that these ten plants have canceled enough capacity to produce batteries for 2 million electric vehicles. Of these, seven will focus primarily on the energy storage systems (ESS) market. Among the names involved are Ford, which is converting a factory in Kentucky, and Stellantis along with its partner Samsung SDI, which are converting production lines at its Indiana plant. General Motors is also considering producing its own energy storage batteries, according to declared its head of batteries, Kurt Kelty, to the Financial Times. Why data centers need batteries. Data centers that process AI models require uninterrupted power supply to protect against blackouts or voltage fluctuations. With the construction boom of these centers in the United States, storage batteries have become a critical component of infrastructure. This opens up an alternative revenue stream for automotive companies struggling with electric vehicles. The Tesla example. It is worth taking a look at the numbers of Elon Musk’s company, since in addition to producing vehicles it also manufactures energy storage systems such as Megapack and Powerwall. In this sense, its battery business is turning out to be tremendously profitable, since the company reported income for energy and storage of $12.8 billion in its last quarter, a growth of 27% year-on-year. In 2021, that figure barely reached 2.8 billion. Meanwhile, its revenue from electric vehicle sales has fallen 9% to $64 billion. Political context difficult. Just like account FT, Since the Trump administration eliminated tax incentives for electric vehicle buyers put in place during the Biden era and lowered emissions standards, the electric vehicle market in the United States has seen a slowdown. This has led BloombergNEF to revise its forecast downwards: from expecting electric vehicles to represent 48% of total car sales in 2030, they now project only 27%. Electric vehicles currently account for about 8% of new car sales in the United States. The aid that is maintained. As well as mention In the middle, although these subsidies have been eliminated, the administration retains generous incentives for battery manufacturers: a production credit of $35 per kilowatt-hour and a 30% tax credit for investments in energy storage. In addition, tariffs on Chinese storage batteries are around 60%, allowing manufacturers to produce in the United States at prices close to parity with Asian imports. Between the lines. It is also worth highlighting important nuances. CRU’s Sam Adham counted to FT that battery manufacturers will not necessarily pass on what they save on costs to their customers (they may increase their margins, for what). In addition, according to the FT, the Korean companies that lead the production of storage batteries in the United States have less experience with the lithium iron phosphate technology used by these systems, compared to their Chinese rivals. It is not a total reconversion, for now. Wood Mackenzie’s data suggest that electric vehicles will continue to absorb a greater proportion of battery installations than energy storage until the end of 2030. “If there is a rebound in demand for electric vehicles, companies that have switched to storage systems could be left behind,” said Milan Thakore, an analyst at the consultancy. More sectors than They pivot towards AI. From the Semafor newsletter, also they mention another very interesting sector that is beginning to convert its business towards AI: cryptocurrency miners. And according to Morgan Stanley, facilities dedicated to cryptocurrency mining are seeing a more profitable business in the creation of data centers for AI. The economics of cryptocurrency mining have gotten worse and worse since the reward is lower, and converting these facilities into infrastructure for artificial intelligence is much more profitable. According to the calculations Morgan Stanley, transforming all bitcoin mining facilities in the United States could reduce the electrical capacity deficit for data centers by between 10 and 15 gigawatts. Cover image | CHUTTERSNAP and İsmail Enes Ayhan In Xataka | If AI is the “weapon” of the future, the US is already investing 25% of all world military spending in it

Ten years ago, we were afraid of fast charging. The 10,000mAh batteries are going the same way

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The world of smartphones is divided in two: a Chinese market betting on gigantic silicon-carbon and some “traditional” manufacturers who do not dare to take the leap. This weekend, the controversy was sparked by YouTuber Marques Brownlee, after publishing a video that has surpassed one million views in less than 24 hours. what has happened. “The problem with smartphone batteries”is the title of a video that has spread like wildfire among the community tech. In it, he explained some of the problems that silicon-carbon batteries supposedly suffer from, a technology that China is betting on to boost the capacity of its phones. above 10,000mAh. The problems. Silicon-carbon batteries are not a new technology, but they have been starting to be implemented in smartphones for just two years. During this time, there are several concerns on the table. Possible swelling due to the expansion of silicon: with each charge, a battery contracts and expands. Silicon can triple its volume, generating greater internal stresses in the battery. At the same time, there are fears that this expansion-contraction cycle could cause cracks and leaks in the battery. Need for reinforcement in battery compartment (such as small steel cages) to contain swelling. Long-term reliability not yet demonstrated in smartphones. Yes, but. Concerns about whether silicon-carbon batteries are safe or not are legitimate. Just as, back in the day, we were worried that a mobile phone with “fast” charging like the OnePlus 3 in 2016 (those times when Dash Charge was 30W) could explode. Today there are already mobile phones with 120W. The first commercial mobile phone to incorporate this type of battery was the Honor Magic 5 Pro in its Chinese version. No cases of the slightest problem have been reported to date in its more than two years of life. Manufacturers do not go crazy. Manufacturers are more than aware of the possible dangers that these types of batteries can have, and equip their phones with specific chips to control the charge in real time if excess heat is detected. Some brands, like Honor, go so far as to create microscopic tunnels in their batteries so that lithium ions can reduce chemical friction. Because yes, although carbon silicon batteries are called that, they are not made of pure silicon, they are a natural evolution of lithium batteries themselves. It’s not that easy. The next challenge after the introduction of silicon-carbon batteries has been to take advantage of their ability to store greater energy in a smaller size to achieve barbaric capacities: 7,000mAh, 7,500mAh, 10,000mAh. Energy densities notably higher than those that large manufacturers, such as Samsung, Apple and Google, currently mount in their high-end phones. Here an extra degree is added to the uncertainty: not only do we have more modern and not so tested batteries, but we also have capabilities that make their behavior even more unpredictable. Go deeper. The war for high-capacity batteries adds, apart from doubts about their reliability on the part of some manufacturers, logistical and economic challenges. They are more expensive batteries, and some manufacturers They are not taking them out of China yet. for that same reason. Added to this is that although the spec sheet tells us about milliamp hours, the main measure to determine the energy capacity of a battery is watt hours (Whr). Europe does not like batteries with more than 20 Whr, and they require longer and more expensive transport and authorization protocols. If the RAM crisis threatens to skyrocket the price of smartphones, thinking about incorporating significantly more expensive batteries does not seem like a viable plan to maintain the current margins of large manufacturers. Image | Apple In Xataka | We already know why mobile phones with 6,000mAh are not arriving in Europe: there is a clear person responsible

The electric car needs cheap batteries. And a Spanish region is closer to giving it to them: Extremadura

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It’s just the go-ahead but it’s a key go-ahead. It is what will allow Yuneng International Spain New Energy Battery Material SLU to launch a project in Mérida to produce lithium iron phosphate (LFP/LiFePO₄). In other words, Mérida will be key to producing essential materials for the manufacture of LFP batteries. Batteries that aspire to be essential in the popularization of the electric car. Merida. It was the place chosen by Yuneng International Spain New Energy Battery Material SLU to build a factory that can produce lithium iron phosphate. The project will be located in the Expacio Mérida business park and will extend across 467,000 square meters after the Government of Extremadura has confirmed the approval of the environmental declaration for this factory. The project aims to have financing of 800 million euros and generate 500 jobs to produce the planned capacity of 50,000 tons per year of these materials. In the first phase they will mobilize between 116 and 125 million euros of investment creating about 160 direct jobs, they point out in Motorpassion. Why is it key? The production of lithium iron phosphate is essential for LFP batteries. Batteries are made up of modules and these, in turn, are made up of cells. In each cell there is an anode and a cathode. It is in the cathodes of LFP batteries where lithium iron phosphate sheets are located. Without them, the batteries would not work. In batteries of this type there are small lithium particles on the anode (negative pole). These particles move to the cathode (positive pole) through a liquid electrolyte found inside. This is when the electric current is generated which is then used by the motors to move the wheels. LFP Batteries. LFP batteries are one of the big promises of the electric car to make models cheaper and popularize this technology. It is a technology that offers less autonomy than NMC (cathode formed by nickel, cobalt and manganese) or NCA (nickel, cobalt and aluminum) because they have lower energy density. However, these batteries are cheaper because lithium and iron are cheaper than nickel or cobalt. And, in addition, they are safer and better resist load cycles so they will be more durable. This is essential for smaller cars, which will have less autonomy and must undergo a greater number of charging cycles but with the backpack of not being able to raise its price. Estremadura. In recent years, Extremadura has become relevant in the electric car supply chain. In addition to this lithium and iron phosphate production plant, in Navalmoral de la Mata (Cáceres) it is already rising a plant to produce complete batteries. This factory was designed to produce NMC batteries but has pivoted to produce LFP accumulatorsso both industries can be connected when the time comes. Additionally, the region is rich in lithium. Next to Cáceres it is believed that there are one of the largest deposits in Europe. The mine that should exploit this deposit has encountered the opposition from some neighbors and environmental platforms which has paralyzed the project. However, up to three of the seven projects that the European Commission wants to carry out in Spain for the exploitation of minerals and rare earths They are in Extremadura. The cheap electric car. To popularize the electric car, China has been betting on LFP batteries for years. In Europe, most electric cars have opted for batteries that include nickel or cobalt because they allow greater charging and discharging power and autonomy but are more expensive. Over the years, this has changed. Renault works with LFP batteries for the entry-level range of electric cars such as the Twingo or the Renault 5 (in the future). Tesla also uses them in the more modest versions of Model 3 and Model Y. In Spain, CATL is going to manufacture this type of batteries in Zaragoza for the smaller Stellantis cars. And Volkswagen too has this type of accumulator in mind for its most affordable electric cars that will come out of the Martorell line. Photo | Mercedes and Google Maps In Xataka | Europe has its hope in the 25,000 euro electric car and Volkswagen already knows who will manufacture it: Spain

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