There are no cell replacements over its life, and that is where the lifetime cost advantage comes from.
The full answer
A lithium-ion system loses capacity as its cells fade, so owners add or replace cells every few years to keep it at nameplate. A flywheel's capacity does not fade with cycling, so there is no augmentation and no mid-life cell replacement. That is where the lifetime cost advantage comes from.
The design goal is a capital cost comparable to lithium-ion at production scale. Qnetic is updating its cost model and levelized-cost white paper and will publish the new figures there. The business case does not depend on lithium-ion getting worse: the earlier modeling already assumed large lithium improvements.
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