The U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) is engaging in a shady business – a new repeatable test protocol that simulates real shade conditions and can predict with much greater precision the effects of shade on a solar array.
The effects of shade can vary depending on the configuration of PV modules, the extent of the shade and the use of shade-mitigating power electronics in the system.
Until now, the industry lacked representative, repeatable test procedures for evaluating the annual effect of shade on different PV systems.
