The reason I said start up was free was so that people would say what they really thought they needed and not skimp out.
2000w is what hps would use to light up the space. In theory LED's could do it with less, and what I would have thought people would have tried to show.
Solar panels are a power system, not a light system. You are trying to find loopholes but you don't need them. You're always limited by 2000w of output...even if you have stored energy. And like I was saying the whole 2000w is not necessary when using LED's.
For fun, lets say you have solar and it's free to run shit...would that make you choose hps?
Yes I see your point, but I was taken advantage of the fact that LEDs run off DC power not AC like normal HPS lighting systems and powering the LEDs straight off of stored power in battery's could be more efficient then any other system.
So another solution could be slow charging the battery's throughout the day with a small amount of POCO power, and then just using what you need. You would have to see if the the DC LED drivers and battery charging rectifier would waste less power then the HPS digital ballast or AC LED drivers...
No LEDs would work better with solar power, its stored as Electrochemical power in a battery cell or electrostatically in a capacitor before use and converts directly into almost purely DC current, better for LEDs, unless they make DC HPS lights which I don't think they do, so you would have to use a DC to AC converter to drive them which would add to the losses in the system.