[antimagic]

The thing is though that right from the start the calculations make the assumption that the solar panels are sized in such a way that they capture just the right amount of energy over the course of the year. That means that you need to store every bit of energy that isn't immediately used, because it will be needed later.

Back in the real world you wouldn't design your system that way. Instead, you would look at your worst case scenario - mid-winter, and calculate how many solar panels you would need to capture a day's worth of energy in one day. This would also tell you how large your battery would need to be. A prudent engineer would probably introduce a factor of 2 or so both in the size of the panel installation and the size of the battery to allow for a sequence of unusually dark days, but the multiples being talked about in the article are just ridiculous.

[ghshephard]

Thanks - for some reason that got totally by me. Now I'm just wondering if the author had an axe to grind, or this also got by them as well.