Solar power has begun to transform the world’s energy system

The article doesn't mention a technology that deserves some attention because it counters the biggest and most obvious deficiency in solar: the sun doesn't always shine.

That technology is cables. Cables allow us to move energy over long distances. And with HVCD cables that can mean across continents, oceans, time zones, and climate regions. The nice things about cables is that they are currently being underutilized. They are designed to have enough capacity so that the grid continues to function at peak demand. Off peak, there is a lot of under utilized cable capacity. An obvious use for that would be transporting power to wherever batteries need to be re-charged from wherever there is excess solar/wind power. And cables can work both ways. So import when there's a shortage, export when there's a surplus.

And that includes the rapidly growing stock of batteries that are just sitting there with an average charge state close to more or less fully charged most of the time. We're talking terawatt hours of power. All you need to get at that is cables.

Long distance cables will start moving non trivial amounts of renewable power around as we start executing on plans to e.g. connect Moroccan solar with the UK, Australian solar with Singapore, east coast US to Europe, etc. There are lots of cable projects stuck in planning pipelines around the world. Cables can compensate for some of the localized variations in energy productions caused by seasonal effects, weather, or day/night cycles.

For the rest, we have nuclear, geothermal, hydro, and a rapidly growing stock of obsolete gas plants that we might still turn on on a rainy day. I think anyone still investing in gas plants will need a reality check: mothballed gas plant aren't going to be very profitable. But we'll keep some around for decades to come anyway.

I do not feel as optimistic about any uptick in cables as I do about solar and wind. Solar and wind can grow through a multitude of small, plug-and-play projects. Cable projects like HDVC are still giant, long-term punts.

This is literally the problem. Transmission is desperately needed, much more than generation right now. The issue is that it's hard to explain to people why this is, and even when they understand they react like you do.

RENEWABLES NEED TRANSMISSION!!! We need to be building unprecedented Manhattan project levels of transmission, yesterday! But instead we will put some solar panels on a car park and feel like we did our part. Solar is the easy part. Storage and/or transmission is the hard part.

With sufficiently cheap storage, no transmission is needed. There's a tradeoff, and batteries are rapidly improving.

While true, with sufficiently cheap transmission, no storage is needed.

But only the Chinese have either the capability to, or interest in, building a one-square-meter-cross-section aluminium belt around the planet, and that means a geopolitical faff.

> While true, with sufficiently cheap transmission, no storage is needed.

Where "sufficiently cheap" here means "affordable over intercontinental distances".

I believe storage costs are falling faster than transmission costs.