What Can Damage a Solar Panel

[numberonebikeslove]

Big question; searched the internet but did not find any suitable answer.

Besides bird poop, falling leaves or hail (which is out of the question in my part of the world) what can damage a solar cell electrically?

What I came to know is:

1) the back voltage of battery, therefore a blocking diode is needed
2) bypassing diodes so if one cell is in the shade; so what goes wrong if one is in shade? but it is there in most panels.
3) About heat; it lowers the performance a great deal. What about 104 degree F? will it damage the cells physically?
4) About connecting the cells directly to load; what if at some points load gets greater than the output power of the panels?what damage will it cause.

Any other possibility of damage, please discuss.

Respectfully Yours
Naeem

[ppreceipt]

#3, 104F isn't going to harm a panel, they can easily handle 175F or more.
if the panel can't service the load than it does not damage the panel, your load simply will not run.

lastly you have covered just about everything. these things are pretty hardy

[inetdog]

2) bypassing diodes so if one cell is in the shade; so what goes wrong if one is in shade? but it is there in most panels.

If there were no bypass diodes, the voltage of the rest of the panel or the rest of the string would try to force load current through the shaded cells. They will still pass current under these circumstances, but they will show a high resistance and can be damaged by the resulting heat generation. Bypass diodes are important for this reason for crystalline (mono- or poly-) panels.

[Sunking]

Besides bird poop, falling leaves or hail (which is out of the question in my part of the world) what can damage a solar cell electrically?

Well after working New Orleans, Houston, and some Tornado clean ups we found all kinds of solar panels in debris pileups, and/or floating away in the ocean.