I’m in a similar thought space. Keep hoping something will...

I’m in a similar thought space. Keep hoping something will happen, but really think now that it’s unlikely. Round trip efficiency and response time is inferior to lithium, which means it’ll never be used for grid stabilisation in big battery format, and a real negative on the payback time for domestic. too big and heavy for anyone with space restrictions, which rules out most city domestic users.
It’s good in hot environments, and not likely to catch fire, but you see regular reports of lithium claiming to have solved those problems, so the window of sales is closing very fast. Good at long term storage too for long term backup. Clearly some people value those characteristics, but they don’t seem to be queuing up in their hundreds, let alone thousands. Really don’t think the 100% DoD is relevant.
It all changes if the price drops very substantially compared to lithium. Snowy Hydro shows there’s a place in the market for relatively inefficient storage if the cost per GWh is low enough. How low is hard to say - the ZBM2 is more efficient than snowy hydro, but less than lithium - but with lithium batteries dropping in price at 25% per year, a 30% reduction in price for Gen3 doesn’t sound like it’ll cut it. Then, once you’ve dropped the price, you need the volume production capability to maintain profitability, which the Thai factory doesn’t provide. I just don’t see an obvious path to profit.
But for a high-risk play, the SP is cheap now - there could be a contract out of the blue from a Telco that leads to a bounce. So not too bad for a speculative bet.