content: These batteries aren't charged all the way like those in a phone or laptop are so they have much greater lifetimes. Expect them to run for 10 years so they're perfectly good for dealing with renewable energy and better to push on with current technology to allow us to get rid of all those filthy old base load fossil fuelled stations and upgrade the batteries as new tech comes along. But you're right, there are also other ways to store energy such as supercapacitors, mechanical batteries, gravity batteries etc. The important thing is with more storage available we will be able to use more renewable energy, particularly wind.