Thermal storage has only been used for district heating. There is no commercial electric thermal storage project in existence. Babcock and Wilcox have not broken ground on a prototype thermal electric storage plant, let alone a commercial one. They signed an intellectual property agreement [1], this is not even remotely the same thing as commercialization.
Hydrogen electric storage has issues producing hydrogen without emitting fossil fuels: almost all hydrogen produced today is through steam reformation which emits carbon dioxide. Electrolysis has issues with corroding electrodes, in particular. We've known about electrolysis for decades (centuries?) but its disadvantages have not been solved. Likewise, how long have sodium and iron batteries been on the verge of commercialization? How long did lithium ion batteries take to reach the scale sufficient for EVs? Sources say that they're projection sodium ion batteries to be produced at 20 GWh per year by 2030 [2]. Even if that level of optimism pans out, this is nowhere near a scale sufficient for grid storage.
People still hope for lithium ion batteries to deliver, because it's the best (or least-bad) option and none of the competitors are set to unseat it. And remember, almost all of this battery production is going to EVs and electronics, only a fraction of it is going to grid storage.
Hydrogen electric storage has issues producing hydrogen without emitting fossil fuels: almost all hydrogen produced today is through steam reformation which emits carbon dioxide. Electrolysis has issues with corroding electrodes, in particular. We've known about electrolysis for decades (centuries?) but its disadvantages have not been solved. Likewise, how long have sodium and iron batteries been on the verge of commercialization? How long did lithium ion batteries take to reach the scale sufficient for EVs? Sources say that they're projection sodium ion batteries to be produced at 20 GWh per year by 2030 [2]. Even if that level of optimism pans out, this is nowhere near a scale sufficient for grid storage.
People still hope for lithium ion batteries to deliver, because it's the best (or least-bad) option and none of the competitors are set to unseat it. And remember, almost all of this battery production is going to EVs and electronics, only a fraction of it is going to grid storage.
1. https://www.babcock.com/home/about/corporate/news/babcock-wi...
2. https://cen.acs.org/business/inorganic-chemicals/Sodium-come...