Say, if i take 5 solar cells, 3 of them having 27V Potential and rest 2 having 24V potential. then what will happen to the circuit? is there any overheating/overcurrent just like batteries or it will give some output since the difference in potentials is not very large?
More Pages:
- Solar Panel: How Can I Set-up My Small Solar Panel To Charge AA Solar-rechargeable Btteries? (5/22/2011)
- Solar Turbines: How Can We Measure Efficiency Of Solar Cells? (6/1/2011)
- Solar Turbines: How Many Solar Cells Would I Need To Charge And Run My Laptop At He Same Time.? (5/16/2011)
- Solar Turbines: Solar Cells? (4/27/2011)
- Solar Turbines: What Are The Environmental Factors When Using Solar Cells As An Energy Source ? (5/3/2011)
{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
For the solar cell with the lower voltage, it will have electric current flowing in the opposite direction, thus adding energy in the solar cell.
Because all voltage sources have internal resistance, this will really manifest as the internal resistances heating up.
Current will flow through the lower volt cells ( Internal current ),higher volt cells acts as a genrator and lower cells act as a load , and chargeing efficiency of sysytem comes down or it will not charge battery
Not a good idea. The current from the higher voltage ones will flow through the lower voltage ones, so you will have less current available at the output.
You would get more current out of the 27 volt ones alone. The other two just act as a load for the others. That is in theory, but practical use may be different.
But if you use series diodes for isolation, you will prevent the one discharging into the other. With this configuration, you may get some power out of the 24 volt ones, if the potential of the 27 volt ones drops a bit due low light or due to load. It’s a little different from batteries in parallel, as solar cells have a high internal resistance, and the voltage drops a lot under load.
It’s possible that they already have diodes built in. You really need isolation diodes for each panel anyway, even for identical panels, one in shade will act as a load for one in the sun.
Also note that voltage and current specs on solar panels is somewhat ambiguous, as the voltage varies with current, and with amount of light.
.