But you ought to get out of the "harvesting photons" perspective (quoting you above). That's not all that RES policy hopes to achieve. In fact, by sticking to that question, you run into the peak demand/supply questions that are largely expensive to solve. The objective is to commoditize PV panels, put them everywhere, and reduce the share of household consumption coming from the grid. Energy savings are the next step to that end, but unfortunately creating a high return industry out of chimney renovation and insulation is more complicated than out of ground mounted PV.

Putting panels in North Africa is trying to replace nuclear power with solar panels. Laudable but I doubt, as you do, that is it is going to be easy.

Rien n'est gratuit en ce bas monde. Tout s'expie, le bien comme le mal, se paie tot ou tard. Le bien c'est beaucoup plus cher, forcement. Celine

Solar in the algerian desert is always going to be half the cost or less because the land is cheaper and solar exposure is twice as high,

Not to put too fine a point upon it, but that matters fuck all if you don't have the copper to get it to Germany.

and thus it will never, ever, make economic sense to build them in germany.

Except that this does not follow from your premise.

Energy policy is a little bit more complicated than just creating a potential difference between the phase and ground wires on your power plant...

- Jake

Friends come and go. Enemies accumulate.