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(actually the diodes themselves may be identical, it is the way in which they are used which has two possibilities). First let's confirm what a diode is and what it does -
What is a Diode
A diode uses a semiconductor material, usually silicon, with two terminals attached. It's function in it's simplest form is to allow electricity to pass in one direction but not the other.
Blocking Diodes
The diagram to the right shows a simple setup with two panels charging a battery (for simplicity no controller is shown) with a blocking diode in series with the two panels, which are also wired in series. When the sun shines, as long as the voltage produced by the two panels is greater than that of the battery, charging will take place. However, in the dark, when no voltage is being produced by the panels, the voltage of the battery would cause a current to flow in the opposite direction through the panels, discharging the battery, if it was not for the blocking diode in the circuit. Blocking diodes will be of benefit in any system using solar panels to charge a battery. Blocking diodes are usually included in the construction of solar panels so further blocking diodes are not required.
By-Pass Diodes
Now let's consider what happens if one of the panels in the above diagram is shaded. Not only will that panel not be producing any significant power, but it will also have a high resistance, blocking the flow of power produced by the unshaded panel.
This is where by-pass diodes come into play as shown in the diagram to the right. Now, if one panel is shaded, the current produced by the unshaded panel can flow through a bypass diode to avoid the high resistance of the shaded panel. By-pass diodes will not be of use unless panels are connected in series to produce a higher voltage. They are most likely to be of benefit where an MPPT Controller or String Inverter involves panels connected in series to produce voltages well above that items minimum input voltage. Some solar panels are constructed with the cells divided into groups, each group having a built-in by-pass diode. Shading of part of a panel may be cuased by a tree branch, debris, or snow.
between current sources and voltage sources. Electric circuits with current sources are rare and therefore hard to understand. The behaviour of current sources is opposite to voltage sources. Voltage sources like to be left open and wired in series. Current sources, on the other hand, like to be short circuit and wired parallel. Because solar cells are wired in series this causes a lot of trouble, as we'll see.
One single shaded solar cell already kills the entire panels power production. The shaded cell can be damaged or catch fire because of over heating. This is the so called hot-spot damage.
The solar bike PV panel differs from panels on house roofs. On the solar bike, shadow will often occur, caused by the cyclist and trees etc. Here, bypass diodes, not only have to be used for hot-spot protection but also for reducing the power loss caused by the shadow.
Here is a simulation of a 15 solar cell PV panel where one solar cell is half shaded. The shaded solar cell dissipates 19W when the load is 0.5.
Commonly, for hot-spot protection, one bypass diode per group of maximum 15 solar cells is used. Suppose we have a solar panel of 60 solar cells. Such a panel can be divided four groups of 15 cells. If only one solar cell in a group is shaded, we loss the solar power from the whole group. When two groups have a shaded solar cell, the total loss is already 50%. At the solar bike, where shadow is not uncommon, smaller groups are needed to minimize the shadowing impact.
The voltage reduction is the number of cells in the group x voltage at maximum power (ca. 056V) + bypass diode forward voltage. The voltage reduction in case of more shaded groups is the sum of the voltage reduction per group.
Elaborating the above methods, theoretically, the following scheme is the ultimate solution for four solar cell PV panel. Every shadow pattern has the minimal power loss. However, this configuration is not feasible. For more solar cells, this will give a tremendous amount of bypass diodes and wiring. Also the total diodes leakage current is unacceptable.
This design is patented, it is a typical example of a trivial patent, see my article about trivial patents here. US Patent 6225793; Solar power generation circuit including bypass diodes connected in parallel to groups of series connected solar cells.
6. PV panel example
Here is an example of a PV panel with 25 solar cells. Because we want to keep the wiring simple, this is a practical solution for the placement of the bypass diodes.
This example has a remarkable current distribution trough the solar cells and bypass diodes. IA = 3.09A, IB = 1.48A and IC = 1.61A. The voltage loss is higher than expected and cant be calculated as the other shadow examples (9*0.55V + 2*0.29V). As we can see the current trough the top en bottom string is 3.1A instead of 4.7A. These solar cells produce less power. However, without the bypass diode D1 the voltage loss is even worse: