[jka]

I think what you're saying has been true in the past: estimates of the cost of solar energy have often overlooked storage. But that has been changing, thanks to people like you raising it as a concern.

There are now some fairly good estimates including these 2020 calculations by the International Energy Agency that illustrate that onshore wind, utility-scale solar, and hydro are competitive with nuclear power:

https://www.iea.org/reports/projected-costs-of-generating-el...

Solar, wind and hydro power all benefit from relatively short (and safe) construction times and (as I naively understand it) usually require less complicated on-site security, maintenance and monitoring.

It feels like there is a large opportunity for renewable sources of energy to gain momentum and scale up.