Actually, some day in the future ( near I hope ) the battery development will catch up to the solar panel development. I have a stand alone system off grid at my cabin. I have 28kw of lithium batteries running a 10,000 watt inverter, charged by a 2400 watt solar array at 24v. during the day the batteries remain full charged even when running a electric hot water heater, microwave, everything. I think I could even get away with a small a/c unit. At night that 28 kw will lose about 4-5 volts from the batteries with the hot water tank off. It works at the cabin because most of the time I am there in the summer and sunny days in the winter. It has not failed me yet, but a couple no sun days in a row would likely leave me running generator or sitting in the dark. The panels seem to work ok through clouds but Rain, snow or smoke they are severely effected. Renewable energy is almost there but not quite.