Bypass Diode Failure
Failed bypass diodes can create substring loss, overheating, reverse-bias stress, arcing risk, and module-level performance loss.
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PV Underperformance Root Causes
Scan generated field-diagnostic references by category, severity, impact, and taxonomy labels.
Category
23 matching causes
Cable Defect
Damaged or undersized DC cables can cause overheating, insulation faults, ground faults, production loss, and fire risk.
Cell Cracks
Severe cracks can isolate active cell area, create mismatch, activate bypass diodes, and reduce module output.
Cell Interconnection Failure
Broken or resistive cell interconnections can block current, activate bypass diodes, and cause severe power loss or thermal stress.
Connector Defect
Connector defects can create resistance heating, open circuits, ground faults, arcing, electrical risk, and fire hazards.
Flawed PAN File Yield Losses
Incorrect or nonrepresentative PAN files can bias simulated module performance, creating yield expectations that differ from field behavior before any physical plant fault exists.
Widespread Fungal Soiling Losses
Fungal bio-soiling can create persistent 5-11% production losses in humid subtropical regions and may not recover after rainfall.
Glass Breakage
Broken module glass can cause safety hazards, insulation faults, moisture ingress, and accelerated electrical degradation.
Granular Dust Soiling Losses
Dust deposited on the module glass reduces transmittance, depresses array current, and can accumulate into persistent energy loss between rain or cleaning events.
Grid Curtailment Yield Losses
Curtailment limits export below available plant power, reducing realized energy and complicating performance metrics when availability and equipment health remain normal.
Inverter Voltage Floor Losses
When array Vmp falls below the inverter minimum DC input voltage, the inverter cannot hold the array at its maximum power point and recoverable energy can be left on the DC side.
Junction Box Failure
Junction-box failures can interrupt module connections, damage bypass diodes, create arcing, and produce severe safety and performance issues.
Light Induced Degradation (LID)
Initial light exposure can cause technology-dependent module power loss, with amorphous silicon and susceptible crystalline modules showing material stabilization effects.
Module Hotspot from Cell Damage
Localized heating can reduce string output and create escalating reliability risk when bypass diodes or cracked cells remain in service.
Potential Induced Degradation (PID)
High module-to-ground voltage can drive leakage-current mechanisms that substantially reduce string and module power.
Severe Metallization Corrosion
Water ingress and metallization corrosion can increase series resistance, reduce current collection, and create severe module power degradation.
Snow Accumulation Yield Losses
Snow cover blocks irradiance at the module surface, creates partial-string mismatch during melt and slide-off, and can materially reduce winter energy yield in cold regions.
Soiling Losses
Dust, snow, dirt, and other deposited particles reduce irradiance reaching the module surface and can create geographically variable production losses.
Spectral Effect Yield Losses
Differences between the incident solar spectrum, the reference spectrum, and module spectral response can bias capacity tests and shift realized energy yield.
System Degradation vs Module Degradation
System-level degradation can be higher than the nameplate module degradation rate when modules degrade at different rates and create additional electrical mismatch.
Terrain Undulation Yield Losses
Rolling terrain changes tracker row geometry, backtracking behavior, and inter-row shading, which can leave recoverable energy losses concentrated in specific motor blocks.
Performance Loss from Tracker Twist
Row torsion creates uneven plane-of-array angle, cosine loss, row-to-row shading, and persistent mismatch that can depress production across an entire tracker block.
Tracker Wind Stow Production Losses
Gust-triggered stow events move trackers away from the optimal tracking angle, creating modeled and actual production losses that can be materially higher than hourly weather data suggests.