01The shade was not negotiable
Two protected cottonwoods to the south-west put dappled shade across three of the eleven module positions from mid-May to early October, worst between 3 pm and sunset. Removing the trees was neither possible nor, frankly, desirable.
02Why a plain string failed
In series, the string runs at one operating point. A module at 40 percent shade has one substring bypassed and the next partially shaded, which pulls the current of every module wired with it. The annual model came out at 24.1 percent loss.
03What module-level electronics changed
With one inverter per module, each panel runs at its own maximum power point and the shaded panels only lose their own output. Modelled loss dropped to 6.3 percent, for $690 more in hardware.
04The counter-intuitive part
The worst case was not full shade. A module sitting under 40 percent dappled shade cost the string more than one in complete shadow, because complete shadow simply bypasses out of the circuit while partial shade drags the current.