Quote:
Originally Posted by sailingunity
I'm in the market for some flexible panels too. I saw the CIGS, seem to be longer than most panels. How do they handle shading?
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In my experience and tests; they are superior to silicon panels which have a limited number of cells and bypass diodes.
As far as I understand CIGS panels are a continuous thin film PV surface with lots and lots of what behave as bypass diodes; so the loss of output due to shading is more closely related to the percentage of the panel that is shaded (in silicon panels it’s more related to what is shaded, and where the bypass diodes are; I think)
In my own testing if I covered a third of the panel I would lose about a third of the output, cover half and lose half, up to a certain point where output dropped more dramatically. My assumption was that eventually the voltage would drop significantly and therefor output would suffer accordingly.
Just my experience so far; things seem promising but it’s certainly still early.
I’m not exactly sure why they all seem to be manufactured with a different aspect ratio than typical panels; as you said they are longer. My theory is that it makes it more reasonable and compact to roll them lengthwise for
storage.
Jack