The bulk power grid requires inertia. It needs the rotating mass of synchronized generators to function. Solar does not provide this nor does wind. The increasing energy mix of solar and wind is creating real problems for the grid and it is only going to get worse. So these resources being intermittent not only create dynamic stability problems to the bulk power grid but they also create issues in control since they are intermittent resources.
Nuclear has come a long way in design where reactors are now built with expanded capacity to load follow. But their ability to load follow is generally restricted to well-planned step changes in reactor output. The system requires generation resources that can continuously ramp up and ramp down to meet the variable demand of the load and increasingly to make up for the variability of intermittent generation output of solar and wind.
A complete redesign of the bulk power grid and the load supplied with the addition of efficient bulk storage will be required in the future. It is going to take a lot of innovation and a tremendous amount of money for many years before that comes about. Communication and control (the IoT) are going to increase the efficiency of the existing grid but beyond that it would be hard to even start thinking of what the ultimate solution will be and how it will come about.
