So, let's cut down the pedantry a bit. Even in the most pessimal reasonable orbits, up to an hour of outage in the middle of the night for 3-4 months per year

So, let's cut down the pedantry a bit. Even in the most pessimal reasonable orbits, up to an hour of outage in the middle of the night for 3-4 months per year is a very different beast from getting just several hours of sun per day. Why? - You still get better duty cycle from the panels - The time the power is missing is very small - The need for storage, etc, is low because it's a short period of relatively low demand that is missing.