Equatorial weather patterns are not all that relevant because most of the energy consumption is at higher latitudes which experience significant seasonality. A

Equatorial weather patterns are not all that relevant because most of the energy consumption is at higher latitudes which experience significant seasonality. And your daily commute/boat towing "analogy" is not really helpful because those problems are not comparable. Boat towing is an optional luxury and can be worked around at a slight inconvenience by visiting charging stations. Lack of long-term storage on the other hand can't be worked around, it requires double-spending to keep dispatchable fossil fuel plants in standby. And I don't think there is a dichotomy either. Variability exists on a continuous time-scale from seconds to seasons, so storage solutions can expand along that continuum.