[photojosh]

Now the panel warms up instead of the area underneath. What's the difference?

[dreamcompiler]

A small fraction gets turned into electricity. Which ultimately gets turned into...heat. So the net amount of heat reaching earth doesn't change.

[DougN7]

The final heat would most likely be produced in a different location. It would take a very large scale installation to have an impact. I guess I'm thinking of weather patterns when you see those images that say "if we covered 1/4 of Arizona in solar panels we could power the world!".

More of a thought experiment than anything I guess.

[adrianN]

Unless you build solar panels on top of a very low albedo ground, the amount of heat actually increases because less is reflected back to space.