Drawing solar from states to the east would only make the duck curve worse though, right? Power production would taper off even earlier than the peak demand.
Transmission is crucial for flexibility in balancing generation and consumption, as well as optimizing storage utilization. You can also assume there will be times you’ll throw away (curtail) clean energy as it’s cheaper than it would’ve been to store and then deliver it, but you still need that capacity available at other times (seasonal variability).