It is in some cases economical to install way too many solar panels, because production is variable. If you install enough for 100% production on a sunny day, then on a cloudy day you only have 70% of what you need. So instead you install 150% of what you need, so you never go below 100%.
Then the question is what to do with the excess during sunny days. Storage didn’t used to be a problem because early solar adapters could sell it to other parts of the grid who are still using fossil fuels, and fossil fuel production plants can ramp down as needed (natural gas especially).
It’s only now that renewables are becoming such a large portion of the grid that it’s getting difficult to ramp the remaining fossil fuels down and up fast enough that we need to look into storage. Current storage options are extremely expensive though, similar in cost to a solar panel installation (at least on the residential side).
It is in some cases economical to install way too many solar panels, because production is variable. If you install enough for 100% production on a sunny day, then on a cloudy day you only have 70% of what you need. So instead you install 150% of what you need, so you never go below 100%.
Then the question is what to do with the excess during sunny days. Storage didn’t used to be a problem because early solar adapters could sell it to other parts of the grid who are still using fossil fuels, and fossil fuel production plants can ramp down as needed (natural gas especially).
It’s only now that renewables are becoming such a large portion of the grid that it’s getting difficult to ramp the remaining fossil fuels down and up fast enough that we need to look into storage. Current storage options are extremely expensive though, similar in cost to a solar panel installation (at least on the residential side).