Already new long distance transmission has been added but much more would be needed. The other requirement is storage for which a solution does not yet exist but progress is being made. Wind cost is not reducing much so the total US generation budget would be about $50B/y and about the same again for transmission and storage. That is about $100B/y for everything. That’s not really a big bill for US. GDP is about $18T/y. The federal budget is $2.6T/y and defense is $700B/y of that.
As the costs become apparent and the limits of the grid to absorb intermittent power are reached, incremental alternatives like StratoSolar that solve the problems might get some attention. Solar in particular has always been an underdog and has only very recently come to the fore. As it starts to behave like an incumbent with a lot to lose and starts to reach deployment limits, an incremental change to StratoSolar might seem an attractive alternative.
By Edmund Kelly