OK, lets have a level playing field without subsidies and no political preferences and see what technology provides energy the cheapest an most reliably, if they can do it with renewables great.
I don't believe batteries would be much use for providing supply apart from balancing the grid by taking up the slack instantly for a short period as they switch supply sources. Larger sources of power will be needed as for example SA had 26 consecutive days without wind in one period last autumn, the whole of Australia had 4 consecutive days without wind. You can't tell me that if you have enough wind turbines to run Australia then you double up with enough solar and storage for when the wind doesn't blow that all the backup and duplication needed to guarantee supply won't cost more than some fossil fuel plants.
I read about a solar thermal plant in California where they found that the sun didn't get the water hot enough until 11am for the plant to produce and it stopped around 3pm, only running for around 4 hours/day. They then used gas to boost the water in the morning to get it running earlier, but heating water with gas is very inefficient, the amount of gas used if put through a gas turbine would produce more electricity than the production of the whole solar plant.
