[nl]

This is mostly untrue.

Coal plants in particular are dramatically unsuited for the rapid changes in output to respond to changing demands for power.

Gas plants on the other hand are. And gas plants are cheap!

Overbuilding renewables with combinations of solar, geothermal (where available) and wind gives pretty good availability on it's own and with gas plants as a backup it gives you plenty of grid stability.

Edit: A link you posted elsewhere (thanks!) points out how well this works:

> If other sources meet demand 5% of the time, electricity costs fall and the energy capacity cost target rises to $150/kWh.

Battery storage is already well below this $150/kWh price.

https://www.cell.com/joule/fulltext/S2542-4351(19)30300-9

[brutusborn]

Do you have any non-Lazard data for the claim "Battery storage is already well below this $150/kWh price."?

[nl]

https://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy21osti/79236.pdf lists a lot of difference references, and the Lazard range covers them all.

https://reneweconomy.com.au/solar-wind-and-battery-storage-n... gives "Utility-scale battery (four-hour storage duration) $145-167 per MWh" and references BloombergNEF

Better link for Bloomberg reference: https://www.energy-storage.news/behind-the-numbers-the-rapid...

[brutusborn]

Again, this is only for very short term storage. We are comparing apples and oranges.

As an example, for most of Aus, 5 hrs storage will only work for <80% renewables [0]. It's only practical on smaller scales which doesn't mean it isn't useful now but just means that the ~$100/MWh systems will not be practical everywhere, especially when renewables become more ubiquitous.

[0] https://reneweconomy.com.au/much-storage-back-high-renewable...

Edit: I had a deeper look at the NREL paper and most of their costs seem to be in the $100s/kWh rather than MWh. E.g ~$300/ kWh for 6 hour systems on Fig. 6.

[hdevalence]

You can go buy them for $100/kWh on batteryhookup.com right now if you want.