How efficient is the type of converter you want to use? I much rather take the loss in the cable.
It's not the loss itself I'm worried about. I mean if on 1.5mm at 10 amps it's dropping 2V and wasting 20W as heat to the outside world, it's fine... not ideal, but fine.
What isn't fine however is a battery that drops to 12V under 10Amps load, then lossing 2V on the circuit and I end up with 10V to work with.
That again is fine. But, I will need to boost it for almost everything useful anyway.
The higher voltage alternative, or even the full AC inverter route aims to take care of the cable loss before transmission. Although the point about converter loss +/- cable loss is taken.
I suppose it comes down to equations and data.
Decide the current, say 10Amps max.
Decide the line working voltage range, 10-16V
For a given cable/cost/hassle what is the loss
For the same setup what is the loss in the converter, or converters.
Now it sounds like a chore, LOL
I imagine how this will work in reality. It will spend 90% of it's time switched off at source and 9% of it's time running 1 or 2, 20W USB charge circuits and 1% of it's time running a LiPo charger at 80W or 20W of lights and a 20W laptop charger on a evening during a power cut. So I should just cap it at 2 amps for the 99% and use mains or local battery for the remainder.