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"With a single gallon of water, Nocera says, the chip could produce enough electricity to power a house in a developing country for an entire day."

I think a house in a developing country is key. They say the chip is 10x more efficient than a natural leaf. I don't think 10 leaves produce a whole lot of power...

I'm curious how it compares to a traditional photovoltaic solar cell.

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In fact, the framing of the performance characteristics of this this artificial leads me to believe that the selling point is their ease of manufacture. That is, they are less efficient than traditional solar cells, but cheaper/easier to make.

Just a guess, though. Would love to see actual figures.

I think more specifically, the battery is cheap. It's the size of a refrigerator and provides very little power (a few AA batteries?) but it uses water instead of lithium.

All that said, if they can find a comercial use for it in it's current form, they may be able to improve the standard of living for a lot of people while funding the research needed to bring it to the developed world.

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