New type of extremely powerful solar cell

[Mintmaster]

Well, that's the 90s. A few years ago I was offered a solar panel that I could simply and safely construct so that it more or less hangs out of my window, and I simply plug it into the mains.

Yeah, but that's not going to power any significant fraction your household's electricity usage. I'm talking about the large-scale environmentalist pipedream of rooftops covered in solar panels, and even with today's technology it would need to go on the roof and you'd still have to clean it periodically. Those things aren't going to change.

Anyway, I wasn't discrediting solar power. We don't have to go down the rooftop route. I was just bringing up an anecdote illustrating the littling things that can get overlooked with "green" energy.

 

[RudeCurve]

Currently you could get a 170W solar panel for about $750.

http://www.goldengadgets.com/Solar-Power/c10/p331/170-Watt-24-Volt-Solar-Panel/product_info.html

 

[soylent]

I'm not sure if it's economically competitive, but it's possible to chill a large volume of earth during winter and use it to reject heat during summer. Heat a large volume of Earth with solar collectors(which unlike PV cells can be something as simple as asphalt with embedded heat exchangers) during summer and retrieve heat with a ground source heat pump during winter.

District cooling can be done using a deep lake(cold water sinks, so the bottom tends to be 4 degrees celcius all year round) or sea water if it's possible to reach beneath the thermocline without too much trouble.