Grrrr. Watts is not a unit of energy.
As a holder of a physics degree this annoys me quite a lot. Journalists seem to have trouble keeping track of energy vs power. It's like saying my friends house is 5 miles per hour away.
/rant off
This whole paragraph is nonsense. A 2,000 watt panel is never going to go on a balcony (because it is huge for any residential balcony), and regardless of "capacity" a solar panel is not going to power a window AC unit without an intermediate storage, unless you want the compressor to shut down every time a cloud passes by.
And people complain about writing being AI generated. Is this kind of sloppy writing any better?
But I think plug-in / balcony solar will be pretty cool. And I think there's a path to inexpensive, larger, safer grid-tie inverters which never backfeed, but prioritize solar input first and make up the difference with grid power.
For example, I'm imagining a box that would plug in to the wall, have a DC input from solar panels, and a power strip for loads supporting up to, ideally, a full 15A normal US 120V circuit.
Currently this box exists in the form of battery power station units (Bluetti, Ecoflow, Anker etc). But I think there could be a much less expensive form that could exist without the battery.
I've ranted endlessly about the outsized impact people with no expertise but a large audience have had on society. So so many people have the worldview shaped by individuals that cannot even bother to learn basics like watts and watt-hours for their "reporting".