So, you think solar tech is no longer in its infancy but it’s already matured and it can’t get much better? I hope you’re wrong.

The efficiencies will not go up much more, but the costs will slowly come down. Presently, inverters/controllers and installation costs are a increasing portion (percentage wise) of a solar installation. I suspect this will continue for a while as panel costs are dropping. Presently there is a large distribution of efficiencies from 10% to 23%.. this distribution will narrow.

One thing that can drive the costs down is that if thin film efficiencies can approach the efficiency of mono-crystalline. Presently there is more than a 2:1 ratio in efficiency between thin-film and mono-crystalline photovoltaics. There also little known about the lifespan of thin-film. I suspect the costs on thin-film are going to drop fairly rapidly. It will be harder to drop the price on mono-crystalline and poly-crystalline photovoltaics because the costs of making highly refined/purified silicon wafers, though I know of some Chinese companies that are attempting to drive down the costs of producing refined silicon ingots.

I suspect we will see more innovative applications though.