"If wind and solar developers were required to include the batteries needed to make their projects reliable, none would ever be built."

"The amount of storage America needs for a grid run on erratic wind and solar power is so galactically vast the numbers don’t matter. Because every which way they are calculated, every estimate, the highest one, the lowest one, it doesn’t make any difference. They are all unaffordable.
    "And they’re not just unaffordable in the sense that it hurts. They’re unaffordable in the sense that there is no economy left.
    "Basically America would need 12,500 times as many batteries as it has now. At current prices this would cost about $175 trillion dollars, which is eight times the entire GDP of the United States.
    "Some researchers predict costs will fall, but even at fantasy low ball estimates that are one tenth of current prices, the cost of those batteries is still nearly $20 trillion....
    ""If wind and solar developers were required to include the batteries needed to make their projects reliable, none would ever be built.... It’s the cost of the system that matters, not the cost of a half hour of electrons at midday.
    ""There is a reason fans of solar and wind power never quote the cost of a 24 hour reliable supply."

~ Jo Nova, from her post 'Even in battery fantasy dreams the costs don’t make sense'