While overbuilding capacity and battery backup can address Intermittency of solar power, it causes, sometimes to a large extend that heavily depends on seasonal natural capacity factor changes, curtailment of much of the extra electricity generated.
Curtailment causes associated with making solar more reliable is expensive. The Full System LFSCOE of baseload solar is about 5 - 15x higher than an unfirmed solar system. Also, the assessment that solar is “low cost” while insisting on an LCOE comparison between 10% unfirmed solar and 90% firmed natural gas power is nonsense. LCOE comparisons need to incorporate dispatchability, and are only valid when comparing the same load served.
Curtailment leads to a much higher carbon footprint for baseload solar, exceeding the carbon footprint of natural gas power plants. In the definition of “green” as in low CO2 emission, baseload solar does not qualify. The original promise that often gets solar in the door - its apparent low carbon footprint - is invalid.
Solar power is already a diluted power source, and baseload power dilutes it even further toward the low power density of biofuels. Baseload solar requires at least a hundred times and possibly up to a thousand times more space than natural gas and coal-powered electricity.
So in summary, my assessment of baseload solar is that it leads to overbuilding and waste through curtailment, that it is more expen$ive, that it is definitely not “green”, and that it is going to occupy massive swatches of the Earth because it is even more diluted than unfirmed solar.
Even if baseload power is not the ultimate destination, heading into that direction has an impact. Germany is already well on its way, as 2030 plans for 200 GW solar capacity alone represents ~2.5x peak load. True cost, carbon footprint and area required need to be taken more seriously before our societies decide to further expand the use of weather-dependent power sources.
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