You may have gathered I'm not a fan of either wind or photo-voltaic generation but local losses are immaterial.
One idea which I would like to see become practical, I have called "distributed storage". I do not believe large scale battery storage for peak use will ever work and nor will "Mum" buy an expensive battery powered car for shopping. But what if she had a new "smart meter" which allowed her to charge her shopping trolly overnight, sell back some power in the morning peak if she doesn't intend using it that day and then sell what's left into the evening peak?
The power exported from millions of these batteries will all be used locally so the capital cost and network losses of the distribution system are minimised. The smart meters are coming as more and more people take up the challenge of home generation and we are told plug in electric cars are coming too. Why not take full advantage of all the technology available?
When I put this idea to my Son he said he would not care to degrade his car's battery pack in this way, so clearly we would need batteries capable of thousands of cycles. I don't know it they are that good yet.
