And when the power lines fall down in rural areas, how will people heat and power their homes? I guess they could buy some batteries, but then they'd sit idle most of the time. Maybe they could find some other profitable use and share the capital cost?

> better option is for the government/utility company to build out the required storage for a fraction of the cost

Ex ante, sure. Right now, the existing batteries are a sunk cost the utility didn’t have to pay capital costs for. The right answer is to do both.

> The people buying the batteries and the government's capital.

The former should be allowed to make their own decisions. I agree that the latter should probably be kept out of this: government is usually not very good at making these decisions. But alas, in many places they play a huge role in the electricity supply and distribution.

People are buying the batteries with their OWN capital, not Govts capital.

You say Govt capital which only benefits private utlities and ALSO say govt/utility should to build out the storage. Not sure what you are trying to say. You sound pretty confused.