[kalleboo]

There's lots of demand when the payback is very quick and easy. Batteries being built right now make tons of money on grid stabilization services. But once those easy gains have been taken, making the less certain investment scaling up the batteries to handle that cold snap that happens a few days a year etc will not happen in the free market.

[lukan]

In a free market, where everyone is free to ignore consequences, coal would be the obvious solution - but if the climate change costs are priced in - then batteries do become attractive. Lightweight ultrapower batteries are high tech. A simple batterie for the grid, that can be big, is not and quite simple to build.

We started to price in the CO2 externalities - and demand is skyrocketing.

Subsidies are more of a geopolitical/welfare thing in this context.