Theres plenty of other ways to store energy. Insulated thermal for example is extremely cheap and can be retrofitted to existing power plants. All you need is

Theres plenty of other ways to store energy. Insulated thermal for example is extremely cheap and can be retrofitted to existing power plants. All you need is a insulated steel vessel filled with something inert when heated, e.g. sand. If you want to go real fancy you could use quicklime, that could be used both as a bulk heat store and additonally releases more energy in it's hydration bonds than lithium ion batteries. You can actually run a surprising amount of existing coal plants on iron dust, which when burned becomes iron oxide, which can then be recycled to metalic iron. Northern germany has many salt caverns which can be used as pressurised air storage. Southern germany also has huge pumped hydro storage potentials. Batteries are one storage technology, there are plenty others, far cheaper if you just want bulk and dont't care about space.