system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
ELI5 - Why do solar panels capture so little energy from the sun?

I've been told that the biggest issue with solar panels is that they capture only a fraction of the possible energy released from the sunlight. A quick google search tells me that the average commercial solar panel converts 17-20% of sunlight into electricity. While 17-20% surely is a significant amount, what are the limitations of not converting 100% of sunlight into energy?
gpt
Note that 17-20% is actually a really good efficiency.  Photosynthesis is only 3% efficient; 600M years of evolution gave us a mechanism that's only 1/6 as good as the last 40 years of solar cell development.  Solar cells in the early 1980s were also about 3-4% efficient.