... is not love, sweet love (unless you are Burt Bacharach)
no, it's really Better Battery Technology.
You see sustainable energy is where it is all at, but the wind and sun are inconstant providers, so we need to somehow fill the gaps, particularly in the small-scale micro-generation (<10kw) domain.
In larger systems, there are quite a few emerging technologies to do the job, like fuel cells, molten salt batteries, and even flywheels. For hydroelectric schemes, it is even easier, you just pump the water back uphill with any excess power.
But none of those techniques seem to have made it onto the domestic front. For a home solar power system, unless you are in Japan where they about to get a whopping $NZ 0.67c/kwh for every unit they feed back, it is cheaper to use your own power than to revert to the grid. However even the relatively low-cost lead-acid battery bank is difficult to justify cost-wise.
At the moment the already well-established lithium-ion battery is one of the best options, but any sudden surge in popularity could easily see the price and availability of lithium change the equation.
The so-called rust-belt battery , is looking very interesting for backup -power in community-sized projects, and at $US30/kwh the estimated costs are way under anything else - wouldn't it be nice if they can scale it down to household size?
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