“Over the next 3-5 years this is likely to result in development of batteries which have greater storage density and are cheaper than the initial offering from Elon Musk which is priced at the margin of affordability.” This is the kind of prophesy that Musk’s promotional efforts have generated. The whole of this article reflects the resulting flood of optimism that has swept energy-watchers all over the world. They might all be right, and we won’t have to wait long to find out. In the meantime it’s worth remembering that batteries were invented over 200 years ago, the goals of higher energy density and faster recharging have been targets of research ever since, electric vehicles were on the roads over a century ago, billions of lithium batteries have already been manufactured – I could go on but my point is that there is plenty of history to temper the optimism that has exploded out of the Tesla promotional machine. By the way, the ‘Musk’ batteries are actually from Panasonic, which started making lithium batteries in 1994 and is a joint venture partner in the Tesla gigafactory. Also I thought that the ‘free solar fuel’ slogan had been dropped years ago. It’s one of those seductive half-truths. It’s only free until you want to put it to use. In that sense it’s exactly like coal or gas sitting under the earth’s surface. The only costs worth comparing are the costs of delivered products, like electricity. Solar electricity does represent wonderful technology but please don’t devalue it by perpetuating the ‘free fuel’ slogan.

The energy regulator AEMO has looked into home batteries, EVs and switching gas appliances for electric. It doesn't share the author's optimism
http://www.aemo.com.au/News-and-Events/News/News/2015-Emerging-Technologies-Information-Paper
Basically the cost or payback period is too great. The report suggests we will have 8 Gwh in battery storage by the year 2035. In 2015 we are using 248 Twh/365 = 680 Gwh per day so I make 8 Gwh about 17 minutes worth of national electricity use. An OLO article some weeks back by Di Natale's off-grid neighbour suggested we need 5 days of battery storage to minimise use of a back up generator. In that context batteries are insignificant.

When oil is gone EVs are likely to rule the roads but they need to get a lot cheaper for casual workers to commute in. Some say we will never increase upon 93 million barrels a day of liquid fuels but when that will decline is not yet clear. Bizarrely EVs will increase the need for baseload power as most will be charged at home overnight. The author's faith in batteries is like the way dry rock geothermal was lauded just a few years ago. It didn't pan out.

In some cases solar is far, far cheaper.
On a communal property, near Ebor(NSW) in which I once had a share, the cost of having the electricity brought to the property (poles, wires, labour) from a few kilometres away was $34,000. there was extra cost to bring it to the individual holdings.
For that money the three residences were set up with solal power and inverters to convert to 240 volts where required.

This was over 20 years ago and they are still all solar and happy with it.

After just 5 years of solar power I have about 20 broken down and dead and finished solar batteries, how do I safely dispose them and who pays cost of new ones, every five 5 years? And who pays for the disposal and refitting in non wealthy households?

If ever any industrialised society becomes dependent on any single source of energy we can be absolutely certain that it won't be solar with battery backup. Maybe coal or nuclear could do it, but there will almost certainly be a combination of energy sources, some of which haven't yet been invented or brought to commercial viability.

Be that as it may, I'm fascinated by the following scenario: In about twenty five years time, existing solar panels will need to be replaced. Will the government subsidise this massive cost, as it has subsidised existing installations? If Mike Pope's dreams are achieved, and the contribution of rooftop solar panels significantly exceeds its current 2% of energy generated, what will happen? Imagine if all those households aren't connected to the grid!

Maybe it's time to get real,to consider that it's horses for courses, and promote appropriate technologies, including nuclear and the possibility of clean coal.

These type of batteries have got nothing to do with national power usage. It’s individual domestic power usage. If you take a few million households off the grid, you can shut down a few of the worst polluting generation methods.

Industrial grade storage will come when industry gets it’s act into gear. At the moment they have no incentive to do anything as they get cheap power of the grid.

Households are subsidizing industrial power.

AEMO are subject to saying anything, in their own interests. They had our former PM doing what he was told. You can only imagine there was reasons for doing so.