... You are willfully failing to understand the concept of correlation. Sun and wind are anticorrelated in most regions. Adding both reduces the storage needed

... You are willfully failing to understand the concept of correlation. Sun and wind are anticorrelated in most regions. Adding both reduces the storage needed. It doesn't increase it. Condescendingly stating that solar alone requires 12 hours of batteries does not make it any less true that solar + wind is superior to wind. Transmission costs money and raw materials and depending on it entirely (as an all wind or all nuclear solution would) makes the whole system brittle. Seeing as you are positing zero cost for transmission you can just put all of the solar in the least cloudy areas with 30% capacity factor and uncorrelated weather. Given the assumption of no transmission costs, try this tool: https://model.energy https://model.energy Using real costs for real projects that actually exist, and "dispatchable 1" to model existing hydro, you can solve for the optimal mix: https://model.energy/?results=3491f4124100114a1c3ba16966390326#solve https://model.energy/?results=3491f4124100114a1c3ba169663903... It almost always involves solar, because PV is the cheapest energy source by at least a factor of two over about 70% of the inhabited world. The smaller the region and the less long distance transmission, the more correlated the wind and the more solar is optimal. https://model.energy/?results=732e5306df0bde74aa22f57433e5883a#solve https://model.energy/?results=732e5306df0bde74aa22f57433e588... https://model.energy/?results=e0560182e98eef88fa715ec2a0b118b2#solve https://model.energy/?results=e0560182e98eef88fa715ec2a0b118... Plus tilting solar (which this tool does not model) in some regions matches the CF of wind. Some transmission, some solar, some wind, and some other/hydro will always be a better toolbox to have than just wind and transmission. Throwing solar away entirely because of an irrational response to the isolated results of a specific residential install with no transmission is just as crazy as trying to shoe-horn more LWRs than it is possible to fuel even once into the solution. Also you're not putting enough constraints on your land use estimates to make the numbers comparable in any coherent way. A high coverage fixed tilt system at low latitude has a coverage ratio of about 90% or 180W (nameplate) per m^2. A single axis system has a lower coverage ratio around 100W/m^2 but a higher capacity factor. You can't go using median CF if you're assuming transmission is free (what was that about how stupid people who assume averages for everything are?), you'd be putting all your solar in the southwest where capacity factors are 30% for 50% coverage ratios and the *net* energy per unit area would be higher than what you're assuming for nameplate. In either case your figures for land use are not consistent with your assumptions. Finally wind isn't infinite. You can't just go and find another TW of world class wind resource. There is plenty if used sensibly, but you can't magic more out of nothing.