jackbalt

I just commented something similar. I’m a former transmission planning engineer and this type of analysis is nothing new.

Not OP, but you can make pretty good estimates using data that NREL collects. They have pretty detailed GHI for most of the country. In my experience, people most often screw up the sizing of their off grid systems by underestimating energy usage and not the solar production.

It’s not very useful. We’ve known for years that 100% renewables is feasible from a resource adequacy perspective. It’s the cost and integration that these types of papers fail to consider.

Correct, it’s currently more economic to overbuild renewable capacity than to use batteries to fill in the gaps.

Not OP, but it depends on what you consider viable. Pumped hydro is currently in use across the world, although not on a large scale.