MaxxFan Deluxe & Solar Panel Derate

TNOutback

I am giving some thought to installing a Maxxfan Deluxe on our 400, though we do have the factory solar on the roof.  I am concerned how much the shaded area of the closed vent cover (that overhangs the panel) will derate the energy output of the solar panel.  I don’t know how the thin panel is wired, but typically there are groups of wired cells within a single panel, such that a small shaded area can have a much greater impact on the solar output.  For instance, a 5-10% shading on a standard panel will cause a 25-30% reduction in panel output due to the grouping of the wiring circuits within the panel.

I am curious if any 400 owners with factory solar and a MaxxFan Deluxe have noticed, or better yet, measured the derate of the panel when the cover is shading part of it.

4ncar

Are the panels mono or poly crystalline? If they are mono, then the slight shade over one cell or group of cells will not effect the entire panel, as opposed to poly...

TNOutback

Thank you, @4ncar, you made me stop and rethink my own question.  The panels on our campers are neither mono or poly, but an amorphous thin film panel. But what matters is how the cells are wired together.  After some digging, I found that the panels that NuCamp uses are Sunflare CIGS panels that are constructed with bypass diodes - which means the output reduction due to shading will be only the cells that are shaded, not a whole series of cells.  Still, it would be interesting to quantify the production loss of the panel with part of it shaded.

N7SHG_Ham

This video will shed some light

https://youtu.be/SfoFU-JsNKM