[layoric]

I'd say you are right that solar is at your stage 4.. for countries with particular geographical features. If you have a large land mass to distribute solar utility sites over, the power curve becomes predictable since weather that impacts solar production is also geographically distributed (its highly unlikely to be cloudy everywhere in a large country). With this predictability comes the ability to use the least amount of storage (cheaper) for continual, reliable power. And China being responsible for the continual price drops of production of panels, and storage, it makes sense they will be the first to achieve this, despite other countries (Australia for example) having a more favorable irradiance, and larger land mass.

Countries without a large land mass can't do this, a good example being Singapore. And even then, solar is being a potential large reliable power source by getting Australia to literally cable power thousands of kilometers.[0]

Solar has won IMO, it will just take a while for it to reach stage 4 everywhere.

[0] https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/8/21/australia-greenligh...