What about the energy used to design and build the infrastructure? There's a lot more that went into this project than just the static site, which is something the article touches on.
To illustrate, I'm going to invent some numbers:
Let's say that this site on "standard" hardware would use 1kW per day. This means the existing site saves ~950W per day looking at just the hardware energy use.
However, the hardware it's running on had to be produced, let's say that costs 10kW. The solar panels and batteries need power to make, let's; say they cost another 30kW of power.
Additionally, the system needs to be designed and built by a human being. Humans use a lot of energy. Let's say that this took 1 week to design and build. Let's say a human "uses" 50kW of "power" per day (e.g. from food production, etc.). This means it costs an additional 350kW of power to design and build the infrastructure.
Adding up all these made up numbers gives us a total infrastructure cost of 390kW. This means that, in order to "pay back" the difference, the new system has to operate for (390,000 W / 950 W/d =) 410 days.
These numbers are wildly inaccurate and cut a lot of corners, but this should give an idea as to what the grandparent was getting at.
Sidenote: I'm not, personally, trying to make a point about the project itself. Just, in order to fully understand the energy impact you have, you need to take a lot more into account than just "the amount of work performed by the computer".
To illustrate, I'm going to invent some numbers:
Let's say that this site on "standard" hardware would use 1kW per day. This means the existing site saves ~950W per day looking at just the hardware energy use.
However, the hardware it's running on had to be produced, let's say that costs 10kW. The solar panels and batteries need power to make, let's; say they cost another 30kW of power.
Additionally, the system needs to be designed and built by a human being. Humans use a lot of energy. Let's say that this took 1 week to design and build. Let's say a human "uses" 50kW of "power" per day (e.g. from food production, etc.). This means it costs an additional 350kW of power to design and build the infrastructure.
Adding up all these made up numbers gives us a total infrastructure cost of 390kW. This means that, in order to "pay back" the difference, the new system has to operate for (390,000 W / 950 W/d =) 410 days.
These numbers are wildly inaccurate and cut a lot of corners, but this should give an idea as to what the grandparent was getting at.
Sidenote: I'm not, personally, trying to make a point about the project itself. Just, in order to fully understand the energy impact you have, you need to take a lot more into account than just "the amount of work performed by the computer".