Hacker News Reader

I think you can ignore the effect of shadows from cars. If you look at satellite images of highways, the percentage of the road covered by cars is actually quite small (<5%, by length, I would estimate.) The reduced efficiency due to not orienting the panels at the optimum angle will be much greater.

https://www.civicsolar.com/resource/effect-array-tilt-angle-...

View on HN

Solar panels are connected in series to improve efficiency and reduce costs of inverters. Single panel under shadow degrades the whole set. It behaves as a resistance.

But it's still only 5% resistant to the 95% providing electro motive force.

Which is why you add bypass diodes. If you don't have bypass diodes, and have enough other cells in series, you can actually burn out a section of panel by casting a shadow on it.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com