While studies demonstrate the technical and economic feasibility of high levels of solar penetration, transitioning entirely to solar energy to fully replace conventional fossil fuels faces significant hurdles related to grid intermittency, infrastructure readiness, and energy storage.
Solar energy is a feasible major technology in models for high renewable energy penetration, though challenges remain.
The claim proposes that solar energy can fully replace conventional fossil fuel sources for global power generation. The retrieved papers acknowledge the strong trajectory and feasibility of solar in various contexts (e.g., [0], [2], [4]), but other papers highlight major technical and structural obstacles such as intermittency, weather dependency, and lagging grid infrastructure (e.g., [3], [5]). Therefore, while solar is a critical pillar of decarbonization, the assertion that it can fully replace fossil fuels globally remains a subject of ongoing operational and technical debate, best classified as CONTESTED.