We get about nine and a half hours of sun in January, assuming no clouds. That leaves around 14-15 hours of no production, assuming there isn't sufficient wind

We get about nine and a half hours of sun in January, assuming no clouds. That leaves around 14-15 hours of no production, assuming there isn't sufficient wind (also often the case in January). Panels operating at 30% capacity for 9 hours cannot be offset by 5 hours worth of storage. It simply isn't enough storage, even if the panels were operating at 100% capacity. Adding more storage really isn't a great solution either; I'm guessing that you would be hard pressed to get 15 hours worth of storage out of 9 hours of sunlight when the hours of darkness start at 4:30 PM, especially if everyone moves to electrical cooking, water heating and clothes drying, which some states are starting to compel. So, the two obvious solutions remain- import stored energy from out of state, or using non-renewables as a base load a few months out of the year. We'll need to pay for burying tonnes of HVDC lines (stringing them up in tornado prone areas isn't a great call, imho) or the expense of more nuclear plants (unpopular and, currently at least, uneconomical) or pulling CO2 out of the air to offset natural gas (also expensive). HVDC lines seem the cheapest, though sourcing the energy will take years of production and inter-state agreements to get to the point where the south is producing (and storing!) enough to send the excess north.