Solar Panels that are not Susceptible to Shade Shut Down

[Scalf77]

Most of the panels we use today have the solar cells in series, with a bypass diode across half of the cells 18 & 18 for 36 cell panel. The shaded cell will reduce the current output of all the cells in that group of 18, the bypass diode will allow the remaining grouped cells to provide full power. This is done primarily to reduce hotspotting and damage to the panel.

If one were to use 9 bypass diodes across groups of 4 cells then they could reduce the effect of the shaded cell, it comes down to cost but you could probably use 18 or even 36 bypass diodes. I have no idea if that is the approach that that Sunpower took. They do seem to produce some durable and efficient panels, and generally like to show the number of patents they have.

-greg