Today’s deep dive looks at one of the most disruptive - and misunderstood - ideas in energy.
For decades, planners assumed that renewable power could only replace fossil fuels if it was perfectly balanced with vast amounts of storage. But as solar and wind costs have collapsed, a new paradigm is emerging: deliberately building more capacity than we ‘need’ may actually be the cheapest, fastest, and most reliable path to a 100% clean grid.
In this essay, we evaluate the evidence. Drawing on peer-reviewed studies, IEA PVPS reports, and cutting-edge system models, we examine whether the science supports RethinkX’s bold claim of Stellar Energy superabundance. The findings are clear: overbuilding renewables is not waste — it’s the cornerstone of a post-scarcity energy future.
Overbuilding Renewables as a New Paradigm
RethinkX’s Stellar Energy report, which we explored in-depth here at AoT, envisions a world of “clean energy superabundance” achieved by massively deploying solar, wind, and battery systems (Dorr et al., 2025) Central to this vision is the strategy of overbuilding renewable capacity – deliberately installing more solar and wind power than needed for average demand – and then using the excess generation at times of surplus. This approach runs counter to traditional power planning, but it is gaining traction as the costs of renewables plummet. Indeed, recent research suggests that building more renewable generation than strictly necessary can lower overall system costs and ensure round-the-clock reliability.
The key question is whether the scientific literature supports RethinkX’s bold claim that such overbuilding can usher in an era of essentially unlimited, near-zero marginal cost energy. Below, we dive deep into current research on overbuilding renewables – examining its feasibility, cost-effectiveness, and implications – to evaluate how it aligns with the Stellar Energy analysis.
Overbuilding vs. Storage: Finding the Cost Sweet Spot
A fundamental challenge of 100% renewable energy is dealing with variability in supply. Solar and wind output fluctuate daily and seasonally, creating periods of surplus and periods of deficit relative to demand. Traditionally, achieving reliable 24/7 power with renewables was thought to require massive energy storage (e.g. big battery banks or other storage technologies) to save excess power for later use. However, storing energy for weeks or months (to cover winter solar lulls or multi-day wind droughts) becomes extremely expensive and resource-intensive.
Overbuilding renewable capacity offers an alternate pathway: by installing surplus generation, one can produce extra energy during favorable conditions and simply curtail the unused portion, thereby reducing the required storage to much more manageable levels (Perez et al., 2019). The excess capacity acts as “implicit storage” – it’s available as a buffer to meet demand when renewable output would otherwise be too low, effectively substituting for some of the storage or backup generation that would be needed in a perfectly balanced system (ASES, 2023).
