I am just wondering would stacking up batteries, charging them off-peak and using/selling back during peak usage be as good as this, or even better? Seems like this shouldn't be a viable scenario, but given the prices and idle capacity, it seems just investing in batteries and charging them at night, to be used/sold to the grid during the day would be as good as a solar installation.
Another consideration is that battery installations in the UK are charged at 20% VAT, but if they're installed as part of a solar installation, they're charged at 0% VAT. So even if your main interest is in getting the batteries, a small solar install might make sense because of the savings.
Utilities normally consider disincentivizing this type of behavior from residential customers as one of the factors when setting their export pricing.
Pure grid cycling is also frowned on by some utilities.
I mean a lot of companies already do this with megawatt/gigawatt installations.
The key is peaking and grid stabilization. If you're a huge provider you can pay for all your batteries in a year or two if there is some large grid emergency and rates skyrocket.
If you're a non-commercial user, it's going to be hard because the provider rates you pay/get paid are much more likely to be fixed at a pretty low rate.