What's messing with people's heads when it comes to predicting solar is the perfectly rational tendency to base projections on past and current data. I think it qualifies as a black swan event for this reason.
Ditto with batteries. I very frequently see people talk about batteries with notions from the 2000s about expense and manufacturing capability.
Batteries have become dirt cheap to make and we are very quickly getting to the point where the power electronics are actually the more expensive part of a battery deployment rather than the battery capacity itself.
Yes you often here this with nuclear advocates. Saying that grid scale battery storage is a pipe dream.
The real defining fact about solar and battery storage is that it is very amenable to mass production and scaling. Small modular components that can be produced in a factory and require minimal maintenance.
And you see people who confidently spout conclusions that have long been rendered obsolete. It's not just that they don't understand growth, it's that their conclusions ossified a decade or two ago. They're basing them on far past data, not recent past data.
Batteries have become dirt cheap to make and we are very quickly getting to the point where the power electronics are actually the more expensive part of a battery deployment rather than the battery capacity itself.