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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.

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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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