this post was submitted on 29 Jan 2024
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The difference is to turn a large coal generator off, then back on again generally takes about a week. Which makes them completely useless for providing overnight power when solar isn't available.
Coal can only really be paired with something like hydro where you know well in advance that the hydro power plant is going to run out of water.
These days coal power plants often actually pay for the grid to take power from them. They are fine with making a loss during the day if it means they can make a profit at night when nobody has solar. This significantly impacts the financial viability of solar power and is the main reason there aren't very many large scale solar plants in the world.
Because of coal - you can only make significant profits selling power to the grid at night. And nearly all solar power is primarily intended to be consumed by whoever owns the solar panels.