Hey Glort, You are about ten years too late in my case, I used to make these in the UK before I came to Australia. I had a few failures but mostly successes. I found that by heating the olive oil before bottling increased the shelf life out to several years.
The idea to buy tomatoes in from the local market is a good one, just try to stay away from the mass produced supermarket toms that have little or no flavor even when dried.
Perhaps you have found a use for your excess power, a small production line producing quality sun dried tomatoes might be a great way to turn solar power into disposable income, not quite sure about how it will align with your previous post about loosing weight and staying healthy.
Bob