It's a good point. If we do get energy disruption and severe inflation of electricity then not only will batteries become more viable, but the demand will likely explode. Still, I can't really afford to bite the bullet just at the moment. An 18 kWH battery system would probably cost in the vicinity of $20K at the moment.
I had thought about doing something funky with an electric car too, but there is another big expense there and not a huge value in having a car if its got to sit at home every day to charge off the panels.
Thanks for the thoughtful comments mate. Much appreciated.
There's some useful tables out there (on solar quotes) that show the $/kwH as far as a battery is concerned. Some of them are almost on par with residential electricity rates, which makes it appealing, if you look at it from the sense of "prepaying" your energy imports over the next x years.
Unfortunately, you've still got to contend with the "supply" fee daily, as a lot of these systems won't work off grid