zlacker

"No amount is enough" might be true on a boat. I have a land-based deployment. In winter my 5 kWh array generates enough to heat my 2200-square-foot house, as long as I clear the snow. In summer it generates enough to air-condition. This is in addition to appliances, televisions, lights, etc. It's not like the sun turns off for six months.

>>stonog+(OP)
Latitude matters so much for this, people love to make blanket statements forgetting that their situation doesn't apply universally.

People hardly realize (or straight up don't realize) that once you're in the tropics even the notions of summer and winter start to get fuzzy. Consider: if you're on the equator then you can go from "summer" to "winter" in only a few steps. Obviously, near the equator solar is a no brainer.

And of course the opposite is true, once you're inside the arctic circle solar is basically pointless because there literally is a period of no sun lasting anywhere from several days to several months. Of course not too many people live inside the arctic circle so it's not too much of an issue.

Even between these extremes though, the usability varies a lot.