Solar Eclipse And How Does It Affect Solar Panels

The graphs below show a normal sunny august morning s energy output vs the output on the morning of the eclipse and as you can see when it would normally be producing about 5 700 watts the array bottomed out at just above 200 watts.

Solar eclipse and how does it affect solar panels.

As the solar eclipse started to end the shadow slowly moves away from the solar panels. In that instance germany saw a dip from 21 7 gw to 6 2 gw during the duration of the eclipse but was still able to provide the power needed by the german people. As the shadow of the moon covered the sunlight rapidly it also reduces the amount of energy being produced by the solar panels. But in places that are becoming more reliant on solar power like germany grid operators are paying attention to and planning for upcoming eclipses.

On august 21 a solar eclipse will obscure the sunlight needed to generate electricity at approximately 1 900 utility scale solar pv power plants in the u s. While solar power is still a small albeit rapidly growing contributor to the grid solar eclipses won t have a major impact on our electricity supply. This causes the energy production to rapidly increase.