Solar thermal might be?
Economies of scale and automated solar reflector production, will produce power for less than the cost of coal fired power!
Moreover, the fuel remains free well beyond the service life of any facility!
Relatively impoverished Chile, built such a facility and sold reticulated power from it, for less than the coal fired equivalent! It's already done, rather than some hypothetical wish.
And as indicated, molten salt will store heat for up to two days.
There are places in the outback like around lake Eire, where the sun shines 365 days a year, only interrupted by very occasional short lived summer storms?
So, there are places we could site such a facility, and expect reasonably reliable energy.
However, transmission losses, would require double capacity, when measured against demand.
This is why we must look at micro power stations, like say (a) NG/methane powered ceramic cell(s) in every home, high rise, office tower, village or suburb.
The advantage is endless free hot water, minimal emissions, which are mostly pristine water; and, the cheapest power on the planet!
A 60 coefficient, compared to coal, @20%!
A number, which is effectively halved by transmission losses?
Australian ingenuity has produced the world's best, water cooled ceramic cell, and the odourless, shipping container sized, two tank, closed cycle digester system, which turns "our" biological waste into bladder stored methane, and indeed, enough peak demand 24/7 power, to power any high rise, village or suburb; and indeed, produce a saleable surplus, if you include food scraps or wastage.
The question we should be asking is, not what are the endlessly sustainable viable alternatives?
But, why in the name of sanity, aren't we already deploying those already shown to produce reliable power, and indeed, for a lot less than carbon producing coal!
I mean, is the frozen tundra now melting?
And or, is our home planet in deep do do, or not!
Rhrosty.

Rhrosty No, No & No.

The tundra is not melting, the planet is not in any kind of do do, deep or otherwise, & all those Micky Mouse power systems are only just slightly better than non at all.

You have been reading from the radical ratbag greenie song sheet again, haven't you? You've been warned about this before.

Stop it or you will go blind.

Rhrosty

hate to rain on your parade but the solar and PV stuff here is not going to get past pilot plant stage for quite a few years yet.. its still going to be just wind. I linked an article that pointed all this out in my earlier post..

Now as for your Chilean plant. I'm sure its sold electricity because almost any fool of a power utility will buy green power no matter how expensive, but generating 24 hours consistently?.. sorry, not buying.. one Spanish pilot plant in an alpine desert has managed to get to 24 hours for a time and is expected to manage 20 hours a day reasonably often, but you will find all green power plants boasting day round power actually do so because they also use gas.

If the power station you mention does do what you say then look at the find print of the company handouts on it, and look for the word gas. Also look at the stated capacity.. anything under 50 megawatts is a pilot plant, and then see if you can find a capacity factor as per cohenite's article.

COHENITE
Also read Quirk's article.. the Australian Energy Market Operator has already said what capacity factor (these terms can vary, but I prefer average output as that's what it means) you allow for wind installations.. it depends on the season but it various between 28-31 per cent, from memory.. its on the AEMO site somewhere. I use 30 per cent to save messing with fractions.

Another interesting figure is the contributory factor.. that is the percentage of installed capacity the AEMO will count towards the capacity it must keep on hand at all times.. this is just 3 per cent in summer and 8 per cent in winter (again from memory - I've written about it on the OLO site..). In other words, the wind farms will replace hardly any fossil fuel capacity..

With Arabia looking to put 110 billion into solar. Hasbeen is not quite there .

Given the variability of Green power, and the introduction of Smart Power meters, how about using this to help it work. When Green energy drops volunteer households could have there power cut back to compensate for the fall in supply

"When Green energy drops volunteer households could have there power cut back to compensate for the fall in supply"

Are you insane; in the middle of winter and the RET has taken away reliable power and people are going to volunteer to do without heating! What planet are you on.

This is the thing with the ratbag advocates of AGW and 'green' energy, an oxymoron; they live in their little fairy worlds with no contact with reality and replace it with the doomsday bogeyman scenario offered by AGW.

I've got a better idea; when the power diminishes the greens should be the first to be made to go without power