To be fair, he said that they need to look at the total cost of the system (including batteries) not just the panels. He also had concerns about the the fact that China could ultimately control their power grid. He made good points and the battery comment was cheap.

Batteries don’t work at scale.

Burgum is right about misleading cost measurement. Cost of solar in practice = panels + batteries.

Water (at a higher elevation) is a great battery. Pump it to upstream resevoirs with excess solar during the day, release and produce hydropower at night