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Bypass Diodes in Solar Panels

FEBRUARY 9, 2015 BY ADMINISTRATOR — LEAVE A COMMENT

Table of Contents 
1. Bypass Diodes
2. E ects of Partial Shading
3. Solar Panels Safety
4. Photovoltaic Solar Cell Construction
5. Photovoltaic Array Connections
6. Photovoltaic Array Characteristics
7. Short circuit current (Isc) and/or open circuit voltage (Voc)
8. Maximum Output Power Point
9. Voc and Isc Variations with Relevant Ambient Temperature
10. Diodes in Photovoltaic Arrays

Bypass Diodes
It is necessary to add the additional components to bypass or circumvent the shaded or
damaged parts of PV (photovoltaic) cells, to continue the producing of power usually. These
additional components which allow the ow of current through PV cells when the cells are not
able to produce power can be termed as bypass diodes.  

These diodes are necessary because a small damage or any disturbance in the PV module
may a ect the output current substantially. The e ect in output current may be due to the
cells in the module which are connected in series fashion, a single PV cell with some shade
and due to the modules in a string can stop producing the power.

Bypass diodes are quite similar to the diodes that are used in the solar cells where the bypass
diodes allow greater amount of current to pass through them with a very little amount of
losses in them. In general, bypass diodes are arranged in reverse bias between the positive
and negative output terminals of the solar cells and has no e ect on its output. Preferably
there will be one bypass diode for each and every solar cell, but this is more expensive, so that
there is one diode per small group of series connected solar cells. They are normally
connected along with the several solar cells where no current is allowed to pass through them
in the case when all the cells are in use without any shading. The bypass diodes are helpful in
the special cases when the cells are unable to pass the current through them. This type of
bypass diode connection prevents the loss of power which allows the solar group to handle
the real – world problems more e ciently.
Consider the above connection, if one of the connected panels is shaded for some reason.
The panel will not produce any amount of signi cant power and the panel will also have a
higher resistance which blocks the power owing of the unshaded panel. Then the bypass
diodes came into existence as shown in the diagram.
Consider if one of the panels is shaded in the above diagram, then the current of the
unshaded panel ows through the bypass diode to avoid the higher resistance and current
blocking of the shaded panel. Bypass diodes are useless, unless the panels are connected in a
series fashion to produce high voltage. Recently, some solar panels are being manufactured
by the cells divided into groups with a built in bypass diode in that group. Solar modules with
bypass diodes are manufactured because of two reasons. Primarily, the bypass diode
improves the overall system performance of the solar module. The second reason is that they
can provide a greater amount of product safety. Under standard test conditions solar modules
consistently can produce a maximum voltage of nearly 0.5 Vdc. The standard cell
con guration of a solar module has 72 cells connected in a series fashion to produce an
operating voltage somewhere nearly around 36 Vdc. Typically, a bypass diode is connected in
parallel with every 24 cells in a 72 – cell solar module.

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E ects of Partial Shading

A solar cell that is shaded will not able to pass current and/or voltage to an unshaded cell
through them, which causes the maximum power rating of the shaded cell to drop as a result
of shading. More the cell shading more will be the drop in power. A cell with 75% shading
would be more worsen than the three cells with 25% shading. The unshaded cells develop a
negative voltage and draws power than the shaded cells since they try to pass more amount
of current than the shaded cells. When the power output of the shaded string reduces, the
power output of the remaining panels in the string reduces as well. The inverter circuit will try
to reduce the power output, and also eventually the output voltage of the string also drops out
of the operating window of the inverter. In such a case, under shaded conditions, a string of
cells that are connected in a series fashion may produce a voltage drop of 12 Vdc.

When a bypass diode is connected in parallel to the string of cells that are connected in
series, produces a voltage drop of around 0.7 Vdc. As the electricity ows through the least
resistance path, here the current ows through the diode and bypasses the shaded cells.
However, if the bypass diodes were not present in the circuit, the e ect of the shading would
be even greater as the shaded solar cells draw about 12 Vdc, so that the solar module’s
voltage may be reduced to 24 Vdc.

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Solar Panels Safety

The most horrible condition that can be imaginable with a solar module that has no bypass
diodes is that it may cause re and the by-product certainly will be the heat. This is improbable
but possible under certain possible conditions. After a few days of operating under the shaded
conditions, the additional amount of heat produced and multiple temperature cycles may
cause the solar cell joints weak. If the joints get more weaken and disconnect, there might be
a possibility of producing an electrical arc. The high temperature penetrating from the electric
arc may cause the glass to explode by allowing oxygen into the lamination of glass which
holds the cells in the solar panel. In such a case the high and ammable EVA which holds the
glass laminate and solar cell together may catch the re. This condition has to be avoided at
all costs. Hence, bypass diodes are therefore needed in all solar electric modules/panels.

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Photovoltaic Solar Cell Construction

A photovoltaic cell is created when a positively charged P – type semiconductor and a
negatively charged N – type semiconductor placed in opposite directions to each other which
forms a diode. In practice, this semiconductor sandwich is combined with supporting materials
otherwise can be called as doping materials to make the diode. This diode is connected in a
circuit by means of metal conductors on both the top and bottom of the silicon sandwich to
make panels, where they can be arranged in an arrayed fashion to provide di erent amounts
of electricity. Actually the PV cell includes an anti‐re ective coating to accept the most
amount of sunlight into the silicon sandwich. This anti re ecting sheet tries to reduce the
amount of sunlight re ecting from the glass by allowing the most amount of sunlight to hit the
photovoltaic cell and increases the solar panel’s e ciency.

The photovoltaic cell is the vital element in a whole photovoltaic system, the photovoltaic
panel is used to make a cell or a group of cells make usable. In photovoltaic panel,
photovoltaics may be used alone or in a group of panels to power the large number of
di erent electrical loads. Various types of photovoltaics vary in their size and structure.

A single cell or multiple numbers of cells are the core part of the photovoltaic panel.
 A glass lamination is placed over the photovoltaic cell to protect it from the outside
elements by allowing the sunlight to pass through to the photovoltaic cell.
An additional plastic anti‐re ecting sheet is frequently used to improve the e ect of the
glass laminated cover and anti-re ective coating of the photovoltaic cell to block the
re ection.
A panel backing that is usually plastic and a frame will usually complete the photovoltaic
panel by holding all the pieces together and thereby protecting it from damage during
the process of installation.

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Photovoltaic Array Connections

A simple photovoltaic array in the above diagram consists of four photovoltaic modules by
producing two branches that are in parallel fashion where there will be two PV panels which
are electrically connected together to produce a series fashioned circuit. Therefore, the output
voltage from the solar cell array may be equal to the sum of the voltages of PV panels that are
in series connection. From the above circuit, the output voltage is Vout = 12V + 12V = 24 Volts.
The output current of a photovoltaic array is equal to the overall sum of the parallel branch
currents.

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Photovoltaic Array Characteristics

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Short circuit current (Isc) and/or open circuit voltage (Voc)

The solar cells or photovoltaic panel can be typically characterized by the short circuit current
represented as Isc and the open circuit voltage represented as Voc. The short circuit current of
the solar panel can be termed as the current generated by the solar cell or panel if the output
voltage is set to zero volts.

IL = ISC + ISC.(RS/RP) + IO.[exp[(q/kT).ISC.RS)-1]

ISC ~ IL

RS / RP and RS are negligible, the short circuit current of the solar cell or panel is close to the
photocurrent IL that is generated by the cell and it is the maximum possible amount of current
generated by the cell for a xed amount of illumination.
 IL = IO.{exp[(q/kT).VOC]-1}-(VOC/RP)

The open circuit voltage represented as Voc is the output voltage which is measured at zero
solar current. The photocurrent is equal to the loss of current in the intrinsic element of the
solar cell and open circuit voltage Voc is equal to the forward voltage of intrinsic diode Vd.

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Maximum Output Power Point

It is de ned as the point at which the maximum amount of power is produced by the solar
panel that is associated with the batteries and/or inverter load. The maximum output power
point of the photovoltaic solar array panel can be usually measured in Peak Watts or Watts. It
can be given as follows.

Pmax = (Imax) x (Vmax)

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Voc and Isc Variations with Relevant Ambient Temperature

The open circuit voltage of the solar cell or panel can be linked with the forward voltage of the
parasitic diode. Therefore, the open circuit voltage Voc is temperature dependent with
negative temperature coe cient. The maximum value for open circuit voltage is the value at a
minimum temperature at the junction that is speci ed in the panel data sheet.

The short circuit current of the cell or panel increases slightly with the junction temperature.
The below gure shows the variations in the Voc and Isc with the temperature.

There will be a substantial bound to the amount of maximum current of a particular

photovoltaic solar cell. The value of Imax of a PV solar cell or panel greatly depends on the size
and structure of the cell/panel, the total quantity of sunlight directly hitting the panel/cell, its
e ectiveness in converting the direct sunlight power into the current and the semiconductor
material type where the solar cell is fabricated from the semiconductor material either
cadmium Telluride, cadmium sulphide, gallium arsenide and/or silicon and germanium etc.

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Diodes in Photovoltaic Arrays

For example, assume that the output of solar panel is connected to a DC battery. So when
there is light, solar panel produces the voltage and if this voltage is greater than the battery
voltage battery charges. If no light incidents on the solar panel, then the battery discharges
through the solar panel. Hence, in order to avoid the battery discharge when the solar panel is
in the dark we use a diode in series with the solar panel, this diode is called is blocking diode.
In the above circuit the diodes which are in series with the solar panels are the blocking
diodes. In the above circuit the diodes which are connected in parallel with solar panels are
called as bypass diodes. These diodes provide the separate path for the current to ow when
the solar panels are shaded or damaged.

The blocking diodes and bypass diodes are physically same, but their functionality is di erent.
Blocking diodes are also called as series diodes or isolation diodes. For each parallel brach of
solar panels we will use a single blocking diode. Type and size of the blocking diode depend
on photovoltaic array type.

Generally two types of diodes are used as a bypass diode in solar arrays. They are normal PN
junction Si diode and Schottky diode. Both types of diode have wide range of current ratings.
Schottky diode is preferable as a bypass diode than the normal PN silicon diode because it
has less voltage drop of about 0.4V, where as normal Si diode has a voltage drop of 0.7V. In
recent days, most of the solar panel manufacturers include both blocking and bypass diodes
in their solar panel design.

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