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There is a difference between short-term and long-term storage. Smoothing out hourly or daily variations is pretty easy with batteries or hydro. The problem is

There is a difference between short-term and long-term storage. Smoothing out hourly or daily variations is pretty easy with batteries or hydro. The problem is deficits on cloudy, calm winter days. The amount of batteries would to cover a week would be too expensive. For now, this would be covered by gas plants but at some point need to have green solution. It is also possible to over build solar and wind to cover more days and produce excess capacity. Generated fuels work well for long-term storage since can be generated when there is excess, stored for long period of time, and are used by long-distance vehicles.

RetroTechie 3y ago
> There is a difference between short-term and long-term storage. True. But there's no reason you can't use both. So the "smooth out daily variation" and "store energy to address seasonal changes" are 2 problems that can be attacked independently. Maybe some solution(s) may be useful for both jobs, but this is not necessary. I suspect in most cases, batteries will be more practical / economical for short-term storage. For long-term storage (or transporting energy across the globe) methanol is just one of many options.