Are you sure a thermal solar installation will last as long as photovoltaics? Any plant with the efficiency gains you describe has gimballing mirrors, highly thermally cycled metals, steam circuits, and freakin' turbines among other mechanical contraptions all over the place. I see a whole lot of disadvantages compared to a completely solid-state, arbitrarily scalable panel that lasts (conservatively) 50 years.
I realize some places might get really neat solutions out of thermal solar, but I just don't see how it's anything more than a niche. By contrast, photovoltaics have the prerequisites to take over the entire market from the bottom up. They are our future.
I'm curious where you are getting this "conservative" estimate of 50 years. I typically hear 20 years, 40 years tops.
photovoltaics might be the future, but they aren't the today as best I can tell. They are inefficient, and much like the Prius batteries people like to talk about, are pretty environment-unfriendly to manufacture.
- Use simple materials, not a bunch of rare earth metals that the USA doesn't have
- Will last as long as you maintain them (to my knowledge) unlike solar panels
- Have better efficiency compared to solar panels
You are right that they are not as "simple" as slapping a panel on a flat surface and wiring it up. Clearly, they are not suited for installation on houses. However, power plants have always used more sophisticated systems because they can handle the tradeoffs to reap the rewards.