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.

Better grid connections helps with variable weather but it does nothing for solar biggest down side.

Seasonal variation from December to May is enormous.

Storing months of power is a problem with no known solution.

North south connections enable solar power from Africa to be used around the year. And while solar is down in the winter, wind production usually peaks. If you have thousands of km of cable, there is a lot of power that can be moved around.

Ah yes, what Europe needs once more is to become existentially dependent on a region that is both culturally and geographically distant and where Europe has very little ability to enforce and police it's interests.

Have we learned nothing from the 2022 energy crisis? The number of starry eyed suggestions here about distributed worldwide power networks and load balancing is astonishing given the realities that we actually live in.