Comment Re:The idea of removing impurities is cool... (Score 1) 93
They did put in fairly high-cost panels. They'll pay for themselves since the NSW government had an absurdly generous rebate scheme, so we aimed to maximize the wattage (which requires high efficiency).
Sure - if you want to maximize production you need the highest efficiency possible - but for most people, that's not the issue - the issue is the cost - and as I stated at least now in the US, costs are close to half the price that you quoted, though I suspect that prices are higher in NSW as things down under tend to cost more in general.
That's the problem though - residential properties have fairly limited surface area available, so cost per watt is high since you also have to deal with square-meters.
Perhaps in NSW they do, but I doubt that an extra 20-30% production (comparing "typical" panels at ~15% overall efficiency with high efficiency panels at ~20% overall efficiency) really makes or breaks an install where the added cost of 20% efficient panels (only 2 available that I'm aware of, SunPower and Sanyo-HIT panels) adds 20-30% to the cost of the system at the same size.
A 9 kW system is very large - that will produce at least 10 MWh / year in most of the US and probably 30% more in most of NSW and sunnier parts of the USA - that more than covers typical household usage.
Solar panel efficiency is important, but at today's efficiencies it's good enough - it's more important to drive prices down further so they can compete with dirty coal prices better.