Energy storage via batteries is ridiculously expensive if the storage is greater than 24 hours. Hydrogen tanks (or salt caverns) might be the solution, but there is still the capital cost of the electrolyzers and fuel cells.
Everything I read seems to suggest that hydrogen is a pipe dream for energy storage, as the output efficiency is so low. And that's before accounting for all the issues of just storing and distributing it.
Solar panels and wind turbines produce electricity, the highest form of energy, directly. Instead of converting that to thermal or chemical energy for storage and then back to electricity for distribution, you're better off just storing it at as thermal energy at the destination. I think we often forget that thermal energy means everything from ~0 Kelvin. A heat exchanger can be very efficient.
I think there's going to be a lot of interesting stuff happening with dual-use PV panels and thermal heat exchangers. In some cold climates you generally want as much thermal energy as you can get your hands on.
10kWh would be enough for my house (on top of constant 500W and few kWh from solar) and costs about $2000 USD. That’s probably few centimetres worth of underground cabling or orders of magnitude less than street transformer.
