It's misleading to say solar doesn't help meet peak demand in California. For at least the past 20 years in California, the annual peak electricity usage has ALWAYS occurred between 2pm and 5pm:
It's true that the daily peak is in the evening and that won't be helped by solar. But grid generation capacity is built to handle the annual peak, not the daily peak, so the annual peak is what matters. And because the annual peak tends to be hot afternoons, solar actually will replace other generation in the long run.
I used to analyze this stuff professionally when I worked at a California utility.
https://www.caiso.com/Documents/CaliforniaISOPeakLoadHistory...
It's true that the daily peak is in the evening and that won't be helped by solar. But grid generation capacity is built to handle the annual peak, not the daily peak, so the annual peak is what matters. And because the annual peak tends to be hot afternoons, solar actually will replace other generation in the long run.
I used to analyze this stuff professionally when I worked at a California utility.