Solar and wind are now the cheapest sources of new electricity in most markets.
That fact has moved the difficulty from to timing.
A system with a large share of both produces too much at midday and too little at seven in the evening.
handle a few hours well and are expensive for a week of low wind.
Most systems therefore keep gas plants that run for a small number of hours a year.
Those plants are unprofitable at that use, so they are paid to exist rather than to generate.
are the instrument, and they are widely criticised for rewarding assets rather than flexibility.
is the cheaper half of the answer and receives a fraction of the investment.
A refrigerated warehouse that cools an hour earlier, or a factory that shifts a process, replaces a power station at almost no cost.
Doing that requires a price signal that reaches the operator, and most are flat.
is the constraint that has surprised planners most in the last five years.
Projects with finance and land now wait years for a connection date, which is a queue rather than a shortage.
Reforming the queue costs nothing and adds more capacity than a subsidy of the same administrative effort.
remains the slowest element because a line crosses land that many people own.
No technology shortens that, and clearer compensation rules shorten it more than any engineering.