Well, the Stanford professors are using the word solar for panels that generate electricity at night so I guess I can also.

Had you bothered to actually read the article before posting it, you would have seen that the amount in question was 0.025% of daytime output.  So to match the 15 acres of daytime output at Stihl, one would need over 93 square miles of these "special" panels.

From your article:

There are still a lot of questions to be answered before any commercial application can be rolled out, Geoff Smith, emeritus professor in applied physics at The University of Technology Sydney, wrote in an email response to questions. Smith, who was aware of the research but not involved, has doubts that it ever will be an economically viable source of energy.

"Adding complexity and avenues for degradation to renewable energy systems despite being scientifically interesting rarely makes it in practice," he wrote.

Hey how about rebutting me on the ivermectin/Japan thing.

What kind of rebuttal are you looking for?  Are you disputing that Japan has one of the oldest populations in the world?

You are so full of shit @corbe

Has this thread run it's course yet?

Big distributed power generation that isn't directly managed by a power company is a problem and can be unstable. Another problem is generation can change rapidly with clouds/storm moving in. Something has to take up the slack quickly or it fails.

Sure - But I'm talking grid connected. Primary power would come from local solar unless more power is needed and failover to grid.

However, with more and more solar there would come a tipping point where grid power would be hard to maintain - When the solar generated buy-back Exceeds the profitable margin to maintain grid networks.
It has problems.

But it is also kinda handy - grid failure is less troublesome if every house has a battery system to fall back on.
Probably  not enough for continual power without a jenny, but enough to keep the place running a day or two while the lines are getting fixed.

Not perfect, Not without it's problems. But it's worth a look.