Solar Installation – Flying High and Far Away

That's a long thread. Not everything is resolved there. The initial shading tests were not done correctly, leading to false conclusions. Shading parts of a panel from an object that's a few feet away is different than shade from a tree that's perhaps 20 feet away. The first example produces very hard shade causing the bypass diodes to conduct, while the second example produces a soft shade and the bypass diodes will not conduct.

Series panels suffer when some panels have full sun and the rest have soft shade. A chain is as strong as its weakest link.

CA Traveler wrote:
Series vs Parallel Performance thread.