Unlocking 24-hour solar is the new frontier for energy policy

For years, the role of solar in electricity systems has been confined to the hours when the sun shines. But recent advancement in battery storage has expanded the scope of what solar can deliver. Solar is no longer just a daytime solution — it can now be a round-the-clock resource.

This shift opens a critical new policy frontier: how to support, integrate and scale 24-hour solar as part of a broader power system strategy. Some good practices are already emerging, with governments integrating storage into renewable energy tenders, like in India. In 2025, India’s SECI concluded its first-ever tender for 100% renewable “Round-the-Clock (RTC)” electricity with stricter financial and performance guarantees.

The off-grid opportunity: from power gap to industrial growth

Solar-plus-storage can deliver reliable electricity without waiting for costly grid expansion. This offers a new pathway for electrification and economic growth, particularly across emerging economies in sunny regions like Africa and Latin America.

New industrial use cases are emerging: solar-powered manufacturing, desalination and data centres. These facilities can be located where the solar resource is strongest, not just where the grid currently reaches. The concept of “solar industrial zones” or “desert megabases” powered by standalone microgrids is becoming viable, and deserves serious policy attention.

Technology and economics are ready, first-movers need to lead the way

While the solar and batteries are already mature, affordable and ready, the biggest barrier to scaling up 24-hour solar is a business-as-usual mindset. Power system planners, financiers and regulators are still mostly unfamiliar with the concept or remain sceptical of its reliability.

Even fossil-fuel-based off-grid solutions — such as gas turbines — require redundancy to meet reliability standards. Properly sized and managed solar and batteries can compete with or outperform these in reliability, especially when redundancy is designed in (e.g. in the form of oversizing the system, some grid-based electricity or back-up generators that are used only 3-5% of the time annually). After all, gas facilities need regular maintenance, while weather forecasting makes cloudy days more predictable than unexpected gas turbine failures.

The barrier is no longer technical feasibility, but regulatory conservatism and risk aversion.

At the national level, 24-hour solar helps reduce grid expansion costs

At the grid level, solar with batteries will be a growing asset — though not a silver bullet. Demand varies hourly and seasonally, and no single resource can meet that variability alone. Batteries play a crucial role in balancing, but must work alongside other renewables like wind, hydro, geothermal, as well as interconnectors and flexible demand.

Crucially, 24-hour solar can dramatically reduce grid expansion costs. By flattening the curve, batteries allow up to five times more solar capacity to connect behind the same grid connection — maximizing existing assets and deferring costly upgrades.