One concept I have read about is having a smart, ultra connected grid, which would allow the system to capture solar power across a wide longitudinal band to continue supporting demand to an area long after it has gone dark... For instance, SW US sun feeding dusk time east coast demand; Spainish sun supplying Ukraine, etc. obviously this might be difficult to roll out at first given moving power in that scale across borders, but there is precedent for such things and we do have very large grids already constructed. But you can see when looking at feasible plans for renewables, they require scale like this; or as flash mentioned, coupling with more reliable generation. Currently has and coal fired plants are built to supplement large non-urban solar and wind installations - kind of defeats the purpose... But I suppose change is slow.
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