Solar panels have always bothered me because they require such intense manufacturing and usage of scarce resources. TLDR of article: “Many people will argue that if low-tech solar panels are less efficient, we would need more solar panels to produce the same power output. Consequently, the resources saved by low-tech production methods would be compensated by the extra resources to build more solar panels. However, efficiency is only crucial when we take energy demand for granted, sacrificing some efficiency may gain us a lot in sustainability.”
To put some numbers to things, using this calculator, I could generate ~14,000 kwh per year with typical panels on my roof. According to wikipedia, the average US household uses ~17,000 kwh per year of energy (n.b., not electricity). 3/4 of that is HVAC. An air-source heat pump might have a coefficient of performance of 5, in which case the actual electricity requirement would be 7,000 kwh per year.
Basically, I could generate double the average household needs, so I could deal with a hit to panel efficiency. Granted, that’s only for domestic energy consumption. If you factor in things like food production, transportation, water treatment, etc, my consumption would be higher.