In the lower 48 you'd just size the solar to handle winter and find a way to use summer electricity, like electro winning metal from ore or running low-capex high-power chemical synthesis steps like making ammonia without natural gas.
Having energy cost related scheduled (winter) downtime gives the plants proper maintenance windows.
With free power but only during surplus peaks in summer when the grid can't transmit a large utility solar farm's entire production, and the day/night/weekday time shifting batteries are also already fully active, you could (looks like the math checks out) electrolytically refine iron ore into iron metal (for later smelting in an arc furnace) just about cost-competitively with (coal-fired) blast furnace operation.
The key is to skip most overhead by operating them only to eat otherwise-curtailed production and connecting them to the DC bus between the MPPT and the grid inverter (same as the day/night shifting battery).
Having energy cost related scheduled (winter) downtime gives the plants proper maintenance windows.
With free power but only during surplus peaks in summer when the grid can't transmit a large utility solar farm's entire production, and the day/night/weekday time shifting batteries are also already fully active, you could (looks like the math checks out) electrolytically refine iron ore into iron metal (for later smelting in an arc furnace) just about cost-competitively with (coal-fired) blast furnace operation. The key is to skip most overhead by operating them only to eat otherwise-curtailed production and connecting them to the DC bus between the MPPT and the grid inverter (same as the day/night shifting battery).