> The economics of renewables are hard to beat until night falls and the wind stops blowing, at which point the cost jumps to $infinity/MWh I can understand wh

> The economics of renewables are hard to beat until night falls and the wind stops blowing, at which point the cost jumps to $infinity/MWh I can understand why you might think that. But there is one place on the planet that's done the renewable transition now. And it proves you wrong. Let me introduce the state of South Australia. It's an advanced OECD economy, situated at the base end of Australia so far from anywhere it has only 1 transmission line connecting to a neighbouring state, and it's renowned for going down. Unusually for Australia, South Australia also has no coal or gas, and is famous for wild storms taking down kilometres of it's 100kv power lines. It's currently running at 80% renewables: https://reneweconomy.com.au/south-australia-hits-stunning-new-high-in-race-to-renewables-only-grid/ https://reneweconomy.com.au/south-australia-hits-stunning-ne... No, the power does no go off at night. The transition was expensive. SA already had the most expensive electricity in Australia, and during the transition prices did go up for years. But at 80% the transition is almost over (although they need to build more storage), and the price of electricity in SA has been dropping. In fact it's dropped below the pre-transition price, so it's often below the rest of Australia's coal fired generation: https://www.aemc.gov.au/sites/default/files/2021-11/sa_fact_pack.pdf https://www.aemc.gov.au/sites/default/files/2021-11/sa_fact_... With that example to follow, the rest of the Australian states are gritting their teeth and following South Australia's lead. Teeth gritting is required because we are predicting a 50% jump in electricity prices, during the transition. It's already starting to bite: https://www.afr.com/companies/energy/power-bills-to-rise-by-20-per-cent-from-july-1-20230314-p5crzg https://www.afr.com/companies/energy/power-bills-to-rise-by-... . But that price hike only lasted 5 years in SA, and the light at the end of the tunnel is lower prices than we have now.