Positive tipping cascades in the power system driven by adoption of grid-scale batteries

The rapid expansion of solar and wind power has transformed electricity systems, yet high penetrations of variable renewable energy (VRE) increasingly undermine their own economic viability through price cannibalization, rising curtailment, and revenue volatility. Consistent with these self-limiting dynamics, influential projections for VRE deployment generally underestimate the expected  growth of solar photovoltaics, often implicitly constraining renewables and power-to-X technologies in favor of nuclear power, bioenergy, and fossil fuels with carbon capture. These constraints slow investment and risk stalling clean energy transitions before deep decarbonization is achieved.  

While grid-scale battery storage is widely proposed as a solution, most existing studies assess storage either as an exogenous technology or as a short-term operational asset. It therefore remains unclear whether storage can fundamentally alter long-run transition dynamics or instead deliver only incremental benefits. This study investigates whether grid-scale battery storage can function as a tipping enabler by reshaping the feedback structure of electricity systems and restoring renewable value.  

We adopt a systems perspective to examine the coupled evolution of renewable deployment, electricity price formation, storage revenues, learning effects, and investment delays. This approach explicitly represents feedback that can give rise to nonlinear regime shifts, central mechanisms behind positive tipping points in socio-technical systems. This builds upon FeliX, a global system dynamics-based integrated assessment model that emphasizes behavioral and investment dynamics while representing key energy–economy linkages. We extend the model with a battery submodule that endogenizes grid-scale storage deployment, revenues, and learning-by-doing. An electric vehicle component is included to capture battery diffusion dynamics and their contribution to cost reductions, rather than to represent transport in detail.  

The results reveal pronounced nonlinear dynamics. At low storage penetration, batteries provide limited flexibility and do not prevent declining renewable revenues; balancing feedback associated with price cannibalization dominate, resulting in stagnating investment. Once storage capacity exceeds a critical threshold relative to renewable output, however, the system undergoes a qualitative regime shift. Curtailment declines sharply, price volatility is reduced, and the captured price of renewable electricity stabilizes or increases with further deployment, activating a self-reinforcing investment pathway. Importantly, learning-driven cost reductions alone are insufficient to trigger this transition when deployment delays, revenue erosion, and soft-cost constraints are considered. These factors can suppress reinforcing feedback and lock the system into a low-flexibility regime despite favorable technology trends. Scenario experiments show stabilizing revenues or reducing deployment delays, consistently enable tipping, and their effectiveness is strongly state-dependent. 

Overall, the findings identify grid-scale battery storage as a potential leverage point for enabling positive tipping dynamics in electricity systems, while underscoring that self-reinforcing decarbonization critically depends on feedback activation, institutional design, and the timing of policy interventions.