[7e]

There will always a use for surplus energy. Are you really going to curtail surplus solar in the summer when you could just build storage for it? That’s the profit maximizing solution, even if the efficiency isn’t high. It just needs to be cheap.

[crote]

Of course there will always be a use for surplus energy. It's basically free, so we'll probably see whole new industries pop up to make use of it.

For example, an aluminium smelter might use free summer energy to turn alumina into aluminium, and turn the plant off in the winter - at which time the labor force can do extended maintenance and do post-processing on the aluminium produced during the summer.

Although finding an industry where such seasonal turnovers are viable isn't trivial, if you find one it's going to be far more profitable than very lossy storage.