The point of the post is that widespread use of solar will have an impact on the climate because capturing energy that would have warmed the planet and converting it into electricity instead directly impacts the earth’s energy budget.
Do you have any sort of DATA to support that? Because sunlight striking a solar panel does convert some of the inherent electric energy of the light into causing a photoelectric effect is the semiconductor, the rest is absorbed and re-released as heat, so some of the original energy was changed in form to electricity while the rest was changed to heat and since a solar panel is darker than most other things, probably less of it was reflected back out into the sky, the net effect being that about the same amount of energy was trapped, stored or converted---- it is debatable how much loss or change to the climate there really is, multiplied by the fact that the solar panels on the roof contribute to a slightly cooler roof now by blocking/absorbing much of the Sun thus likely somewhat lowering the home's cooling needs reducing power consumption saving coal, NG or whatever generates the electricity elsewhere benefiting the climate, times the fact that if all solar panels were put together in this country, my best guess from the available data on the web is that they would constitute an area of about 45 square miles (an average home has about 300 sq./ft of panels and there are an estimated 4 million solar homes).
So, if we assume the USA comprises about 1/12 the total area by all inhabited land mass and probably around HALF of all solar panels in the world, are you really expecting a climate effect from an area of the Earth of maybe 100 sq./mi covered in solar panels, of which, probably most of the energy in the original sunlight is still returned to the environment directly or indirectly anyway? Remember, even much of that lost to the generation of electricity comes back to the climate indirectly in the work done by however that electricity is used.
You see, the Earth is largely a closed system with an exchange between the Sun and space in a FB equilibrium--- if slightly less solar energy is inputted directly to the climate thru the use of PV panels slightly cooling the Earth, this also slightly reduces the outward pressure of the Earth then in resisting further incoming solar energy! So, there is likely a slight net increase of solar input!
Do you really think that could result in a measurable cooling of the climate, and if it did reduce it by 1/100th of a degree, might that not be a good thing?
