That's the beauty of it: you just keep adding solar, wind, and batteries. And with battery cell manufacturing scaling up [1] [2] [3] [4], I would expect utility scale storage deployments to skyrocket (pushing out fossil generation).
This was always the future, it simply arrived earlier than expected.
Why do we need to currently develop large scale storage? That is only needed for full renewable grid and we are long way from that. The current answer to storage are natural gas power plants which emit CO2. We should be comparing the feasibility of storage to those.
It is much better to use today's money to build more renewables instead of wasting it on expensive storage. Some storage makes sense to reduce the evening peak. But we will have a better idea of what storage we need, and what storage is cheapest to build in a decade when there are a lot more renewables.
As an energy storage solution, pumping water up into a tower and then letting it drop during high demand is simple. Its earth friendly because then at peaks it can take some of the load off the generation, which could be less environmentally friendly. Renewables are better than fossil fuels, and not spending the energy to build solar panels is better than the process to create solar panels.
As long as it's not a toxic battery, then it should be a pretty good interim.
They are built, sit on concrete pads in containers for at least 15-20 years, and then are recycled when reaching end of life. Far more friendly than burning coal or fossil gas, or nuclear waste no one wants to store. There is no perfect solution, only least worst options.
This was always the future, it simply arrived earlier than expected.
[1] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/newsletters/2024-04-12/china-... | https://archive.today/8Dy4D ("China Already Makes as Many Batteries as the Entire World Wants")
[2] https://www.pv-magazine.com/2024/04/12/catl-unveils-first-ma... ("CATL unveils first mass-producible battery storage with zero degradation")
[3] https://www.spglobal.com/marketintelligence/en/news-insights... ("Lithium-ion battery capacity to grow steadily to 2030")
[4] https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=61202 ("U.S. battery storage capacity expected to nearly double in 2024")