Again, nothing about cost.  These news pieces need to give the per-kg cost (NOT price) of the product, including all of the power subsidies paid by electric consumers as "environmental fees".

No battery can ever come close to the energy density of H2.

Hydrogen : 142 MJ/kg
gazoline : 44 MJ/kg
Li-battery : around 1 MJ/kg
(theoretically highest value for Li-air battery : 43 MJ/kg)

It's simple chemistry.

If you want to store lots of energy for a long time, H2 is the way to go. Moreover, H2 can be the starting point for almost all chemistry, and could even be used to produce food through micro organisms.

Cheap production of H2 from "waste" green electricity could open a world of applications.

Henry said:

'Sodium-chloride batteries have more efficiency and can eliminate the need for and capital cost of hydrogen technology at far greater efficiency.'

Batteries are fine for coping with overnight storage, although currently they are still costly even for that.

They are orders of magnitude away from a reasonable solution for seasonal storage.

@Arnold, Sure there is more than only the weight of the H2, but the storage tank does not need to be so heavy. carbon fiber tanks like the one used in Mirai weigh 87kg, and improvements may be expected. Just like Tesla places its batteries at the bottom of the car, also H2 tanks could be spread more "disguised" instead of in the trunk.

I envision a plug-in hybrid with a small (=cheap) battery and a H2-fuel cell range extender. In that case, a 60kW fuel cell would suffice, Which is small for a car (mirai has 114 kW).

The same fuel cell in your house could deliver all the power you (and all of your neighbors) could need, and you can produce your own H2 when power is cheap (or free), and produce electricity when you need it. a few fuel tanks can store enough H2 to power your house for weeks. (and fill your car when you want to).

A cheap electroliser/fuel cell the size of a microwave oven, could deliver the 60kW power source / H2 production plant.
If it can be produced cheaply (without Platinum I presume), this could dramatically change the game on "reliability of renewables", and simultaneously open the way to 100% CO2-free electricity and road transport.

When modular fuel cells and carbon fiber fuel tanks are mass-produced (=gigafactory for H2 equipment), they may become cheap enough that anyone can have them at home. This would truly democratize energy, because anyone can easily store weeks or months worth of electricity at home, and sell it to neighbors, or use it in their cars.

Advocates of batteries sometimes see H2 as a political threat because it could replace "big oil" by "big hydrogen", but this will certainly not be the case. Everyone can produce its own H2, and it will be as abundant as rainwater.
It will be like a peer-to-peer economy of energy.

Nuclear may deliver the bulk of the electricity (although I speculate solar/wind will be cheaper), but the storage power of electricity (in the form of H2) of thousands of people will break any monopoly attempt.
Batteries will surely be used to store a few tens of kilowats, at best for powering your house for a few days, but H2 will be your spare energy for months, and may be very suitable for driving your car.

Electrolytically-generated H2 is currently going for something on the order of $15/kg, if memory serves.  The price goes down with economies of scale, which personal systems will certainly not enjoy.  Further, the whole Hydrogen@Home notion goes against what is supposed to be the big advantage of the H2FC vehicle:  fast, convenient filling.  If you're going to "fuel" at home you might as well have a BEV, where your "investment" is a wall outlet.

H2 needs to sell for $5/kg or less to compete with petroleum, all costs and taxes included.  None of the power-to-gas schemes out there are remotely close to this.  Essentially, RE-to-H2 is a scheme to turn reliable energy into a luxury good.  Only the rich will be able to afford it; everyone else will go back to bicycles, iceboxes instead of refrigerators, etc.

In an off-grid situation this might be viable, because the surplus renewable energy can be zero marginal cost.

But in a developed country application with a mature electric grid it is hard to find an economic justification for this in terms of operating cost (cost of electricity and water to supply the electrolyzer per kW-h) and amortization of capital cost (operating an electrolyzer, dryer and compressor a few hour a day...)

The capital cost for small scale H2 production, purification and compression seems like a huge barrier.

Just because a period is off-peak doesn't mean there will be surplus energy at that time.  The peak for solar is between about 10 AM and 2 PM solar time.  Most of that period is before peak hours, but the rest is mid-load and not off-peak.  PV generation during the overnight off-peak period is zero.

Clean e-energy availability during off-peak periods depends on the energy sources mix used and actual demand/load.

Wind energy is more prevalent during night hours. Solar energy is restricted to sunshine hours. Hydro is available 24/7.

Where the majority of e-energy is from Hydro, demand is the main factor dictating availability. Normally, the best availability (surplus periods) is on weekend days and holidays (24/7) and Monday to Friday between 21h and 06:30H. H2 stations and EV charging facilities can negotiate much lower tariffs during those off-peak periods.

Utilities prefer to sell energy, at a low tariffs during off-peak hours, instead of turning (almost) idle for the majority of the time.

UBER-X modulates their tariffs accordingly for the same reasons.