Well, they just don't seem as science fictiony as superconducting batteries. Coal and oil seem like great ways to store energy until you need it. Turning electr

Well, they just don't seem as science fictiony as superconducting batteries. Coal and oil seem like great ways to store energy until you need it. Turning electricity into coal seems pretty tricky though. If the cost of panels keeps dropping like this, i think a lot more money will go into electricity storage. no idea what that storage system might be though. with home generation, batteries aren't as encumbered by size and weight when compared to a car or a laptop. Maybe some big heavy battery tech will come along and give us a good chemical storage answer. Maybe in the future, power is generated on rooftops, and large centralized installations store the excess energy till night - replacing some fraction of our current coal/oil/gas/nuke generating capacity.