[FredPret]

In that case, yes. But for solar farms, it's the opposite.

That's why I think we should end up with:

- gas plants: easy and cheap to spin up, can provide district heating

- nuclear: squeaky clean, issues are concentrated in one spot, district heating

- solar panels: super cheap, decentralized, and there are lots of opportunities like rooftops and carparks where we are wasting sunlight right now

I just re-read Critical Mass by Daniel Suarez (great book if you like hard near-future sci-fi) and that has the idea of solar stations in geostationary orbit and beaming power to where it's needed with a phased-array microwave transmitter on the station, and rectennas where you need them on the ground. We can't do this economically any time soon, but that would be clean, and require no power lines

[adgjlsfhk1]

Solar farms aren't really any worse for the grid than other types of power plants that can't be located near cities.

[eldaisfish]

yes, they are worse for the grid, depending on how you define worse.

One interpretation is that solar adds variability to the generation side of the equation and managing that variability is currently a question without a clear answer.