I can appreciate that. Electric solutions do allow for a high level of commonality, however, which can simplify the whole system freeing up maintainance time for other endeavors.

The current ideal is solar/battery/inverter/heat-pump. That reduces maintenance nearly to keeping the panels clean and at my latitude it almost makes sense to mount vertically anyway. (Solar fence anyone)

The problem is that I can't produce my own new parts or even aquire them locally. Panels are pretty cheap though so stock-piling is an option.