How is coal cheaper and easier than buying and deploying solar panels and batteries. Both of which require basically zero additional infrastructure to deploy.

Last I checked mining and transporting coal required quite a lot of heavy industry equipment to do even vaguely economically.

If coal was cheaper and easier than other sources of energy, then the US would be building more coal power plants. But even with the Trump administration placing its weighty thumb on the scale to try and “save coal”. Coal plants are still being shutdown due to simple economics.

If existing plants can compete with renewables, to hard to understand how adding the cost of building new plants is going to change that.