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I am looking into the possibility of getting a PV array fitted on my roof and taking advantage of the (ludicrous) Feed in Tarif scheme that the UK government is offering. A bloke came around and we looked in some charts to find the likely yearly yield and there are some issues of partial shading. He clearly didn't understand the technical details so it was pointless pressing him for more information.
He seemed to imply that a small amount of partial shade would seriously compromise the output of the whole system. I understand that the PV panels are 24V and I would guess that they are connected in parallel and the power is fed to a 24V inverter. This seems a poor approach and not very 'intelligent' as only panels producing the highest voltage would contribute anything to the power output.
If the panels were connected in series then I should have thought that you'd get a contribution from all panels. I appreciate that this would mean the use of a different inverter for each panel arrangement but there aren't that many combinations of panel layout in practice.
The Voltage / Current characteristics of the panels may not be simple, though, and my worries about 'sharing' may not be well founded .
Has anyone looked into this in more detail that I have been able to? Any ideas?
He seemed to imply that a small amount of partial shade would seriously compromise the output of the whole system. I understand that the PV panels are 24V and I would guess that they are connected in parallel and the power is fed to a 24V inverter. This seems a poor approach and not very 'intelligent' as only panels producing the highest voltage would contribute anything to the power output.
If the panels were connected in series then I should have thought that you'd get a contribution from all panels. I appreciate that this would mean the use of a different inverter for each panel arrangement but there aren't that many combinations of panel layout in practice.
The Voltage / Current characteristics of the panels may not be simple, though, and my worries about 'sharing' may not be well founded .
Has anyone looked into this in more detail that I have been able to? Any ideas?