> There's easily a factor of 3 or 4 difference in output between a solar panel in Australia vs Northern Europe

That only really matters if there is some constraint preventing you from building a proportionally larger array at the northern latitudes.

No, you cannot just build a larger array.

That map doesn't effectively capture the intermittency of solar energy in different climates. In Britain the country gets less than 8 hours of energy during peak winter. It also often goes with overcast skies for extended periods of time. A bigger array does not solve these extended periods of non-production.

I do not think anyone is suggesting a pure solar solution.

Your reply to me quite explicitly suggested that countries in far northern latitudes just build a proportionally larger array:

> That only really matters if there is some constraint preventing you from building a proportionally larger array at the northern latitudes.

I was replying to the assertion that the difference in power density at different latitudes was a deal breaker.

It absolutely can be. Solar would even be harder hit in a place like Alaska, with the dual whammy of very cloudy and overcast for 9-10 months, and then so far north that the sun just barely sits on the horizon, which makes gathering sunlight very hard (very directional, 60deg angle panel, limited positioning). Works fine in summer of course, that's just a 2mo or so window.

Today, around 1/3 of homes in the Netherlands have rooftop solar, accounting for 21% of total electric energy consumption.

Compare and contrast to the stats for 2013, when solar power made up just 0.16% of overall electricity generation and a negligible 0.96% of residences were fitted with PV systems.

The UK and NL are time zone neighbours, so I'd argue solar energy / duration are close also. Apparently the sun keeps shining in winter or with overcast skies regardless.

Initially I also had my doubts, but it seems we've got solar everywhere before the nuclear power mega projects are done with construction.

The thing about intermittent sources is that it's easy to use them for 30-50% of generation, but once they saturate electricity demand during peak production their ability to further curtail emissions drops significantly.

For instance the Netherlands generated 33% electricity from solar during July 2025, but in January 2026 it was only 3%: https://lowcarbonpower.org/region/Netherlands/month In practice, this means that ~70% of the daytime energy use is already generated from solar, and another 30% is wind and nuclear. Adding more solar panels will mostly provide more power during the already-saturated periods.

The Netherlands could, in theory store electricity during the summer and consume it in winter. But actually creating energy storage at that vast scale is beyond our capability, short of some technological breakthrough in energy storage.