I’d be interested to see how the math changes if you use excess solar power that would’ve otherwise been curtailed to pump the water, perhaps using the excess power to pump water up into elevated storage and use gravity to distribute for cooling when you want to increase generation.

Lots of solar is being curtailed today because there isn’t enough daylight load and batteries to soak it up. There is potential to shift that power around on site, power that otherwise be wasted, to increase generation at other times. But perhaps it’s simply not worth it when applied at utility scale.

And at the point at which you're pumping water with excess solar power, is it better to just use the water as a battery? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pumped-storage_hydroelectricit...