[1]https://www.energy.gov/eere/solar/articles/2030-solar-cost-t... From Endnotes: All costs quoted here exclude benefits from federal or state tax incentives, such as the Investment Tax Credit.
But, I hear you say, what about the cost of storage? Certainly the concentrated solar can get wins by generating steam using the molten sodium for hours after the sun goes down. Over the last 10 years chemical batteries have dropped to about 1/10 of their old price and the trendline still points downwards. Battery production is seriously ramping up as EVs push demand and grid storage becomes a huge issue.
Concentrated Solar is still a day late and a dollar short.
As a cherry picked example, Minneapolis has roughly 200 more annual sunshine hours than Houston.
Obviously somewhere like Phoenix blows those numbers out of the water, but solar is still very economical in the Midwest. I see new utility scale solar farms popping up here all the time.
That's very interesting because what I recall from about 15 years ago is that Minneapolis was slightly behind Houston in that regard. I wonder if it's just variation within the error band or it's been impacted by climate change?
Regardless, here in rural MN I see a lot of new barns/sheds going up with solar panels on the roof whereas 15 years ago they would either have used generators or paid to have AC power run all the way out there.
The link in the parent post contains a map that would indicate most suitable location by far for such an installation would be in the South West.
However, without an installation with a proven track record, this seems kind of like pie in the sky thinking.