The solar panels on the newest satellites can deliver 6kW but the power that satellite actually uses is less. The satellite is only using 300W[1] during the dark phase of it's orbit when it can use it's entire mass to cool down. Is that limit because of the battery or is it because the satellite needs to radiate all the heat it acquired from the other half of the time in the sun?
Looks like that's a purely speculative assumption the blog author made, not a fact. I'm not sure why he made that assumption given that Starlink doesn't actually stop working at night.
Fair point that in SSO you'd need 2-3x the radiator area (and half the solar panels, and minimal/no batteries). I don't think that invalidates my point though.
If the satellite requires ~3,000 W to work in the light phase (based on solar panel size), then reducing that to 300 W during the dark phase would most definitely require it to "stop working".
The battery math is based on purely speculative assumptions the author made about cycle lifetimes. It's not grounded in any real, concrete information like the solar panel power calculations are.
[1] https://lilibots.blogspot.com/2020/04/starlink-satellite-dim...