A Novel Low-power Active Bypass Approach
for Photovoltaic Panels
V. d’Alessandro, S. Daliento, P. Guerriero, and M. Gargiulo
Department of Biomedical, Electronics, and Telecommunications Engineering, University of Naples Federico II, via Claudio 21,
80125 Naples, Italy. Email: vindales@unina.it
Abstract — A novel active bypass approach for shaded
photovoltaic panels embedded in a string is presented,
which benefits from the low voltage drop across a bipolar
transistor operated in saturation, whose activation is
automatically handled by a circuit comprising a pair of
MOS transistors only. The functioning principle of the
proposed system is carefully discussed, and the
improvement in comparison to the traditional diode-based
scheme is clarified.
Index Terms — Active bypass, bypass diode, photovoltaic
(PV) panel, shading.
I. INTRODUCTION
Si-P/N and Schottky bypass diodes are widely used in
photovoltaic (PV) systems to significantly reduce the
power consumption that would occur when a group of
cells belonging to a panel embedded in a series array
(often referred to as string) is shaded [1], [2], as well as
to minimize the hot spot occurrences [3] and avalanche-
induced breakdown for such cells. Although it was
proposed in the past to integrate a bypass diode within
each elementary cell [4], the diodes are more reasonably
applied to sub-sections of a PV panel (also denoted as
sub-panels) consisting of a prescribed number of
elementary cells (typically 12, 18, or 24) [5] in
conventional or overlapped configurations [6]. As a
bypass diode is activated, the power dissipated by the
system comprising both diode and shaded sub-panel
reduces to the product between the string current
imposed by the sunny cells and the voltage drop across
the diode (~0.7 V); however, this moderate loss may
become significant when the number of shaded sub-
panels in the string grows. Another concern is an
undesired consequence of the current effort to enlarge
the cell area so as to enhance the generated PV current
for a given irradiation; it has been indeed estimated that,
in the new-generation PV fields, bypass diodes will
conduct currents as high as 16 A, which might severely
affect the diode (and panel) reliability [7]. As a solution
to prevent these issues, a bypass transistor (“active”
bypass) could be in principle considered to replace the
“systematic-drop” diode at the price of a more complex
control circuitry. Some diode-free systems are either
under development [8] or commercially available [9],
[10], which make use of a low-RON MOSFET to carry
out the bypass action.
In this paper, a novel active approach [11] is
presented, which is conceived to significantly reduce the
power loss associated with the shaded sub-panels
compared to the traditional diode-based scheme, without
978-1-4244-8930-5/11/$26.00 ©2011 IEEE
affecting the circuit simplicity. The bypass task is
delegated to a bipolar transistor, which is automatically
enabled to operate in saturation by the combined action
of two MOS devices only.
II. THE ACTIVE BYPASS CIRCUIT
The traditional bypass scheme relying on a mere diode
mounted in anti-parallel to the sub-panel is shown in
Fig. 1a. When the sub-panel is shaded, the voltage drop
Vsub-panel becomes negative, thus enabling the conduction
of the diode, which offers an alternative path for the
portion of the string current fed by the fully irradiated
cells that cannot flow through the sub-panel (also
denoted as bypass current). Fig. 1b and 1c depict two
“dual” versions of the proposed active bypass system,
which are referred to as PNP/NMOS and NPN/PMOS in
the following. Let us consider the PNP/NMOS scheme
to illustrate the operating principle of the approach. As
can be seen, the circuit includes: a PNP bipolar transistor
devised to act as a bypass component when the sub-
panel is partially shaded; two NMOSTs, denoted with A
and B, which are devised to automatically turn on the
PNP device as shading occurs, as well as to keep it
inactive when the sub-panel is fully exposed to sunlight;
a resistor R to ensure a negative feedback action on the
base current; a diode, which operates as a bypass
component in the place of the PNP transistor when the
sub-panel is under ideally dark conditions. The threshold
voltages of NMOSTs A and B must satisfy the constraint
VTHAVTHB, as will be clarified shortly.
The operating behavior of the active bypass system
can be described as follows. When the sub-panel is
under partial shading conditions, it conducts only the
portion Isub-panel (determined by the shading level) of the
total current imposed by the sunny cells in the string.
Since NMOS A is destined to bear a significant portion
of Isub-panel, the voltage drop Vsub-panel=VGSA unavoidably
exceeds the threshold voltage VTHA to switch NMOS A
on. It is noteworthy that, contrarily to what happens in
the traditional bypass scheme in Fig. 1a, Vsub-panel is
positive, that is, the sub-panel, despite being partially
shaded, keeps producing power, which annihilates the
hot spot occurrences, whereas NMOS A dissipates
power. VDSA, is, in turn, slightly higher than Vsub-panel, the
difference being the voltage drop across the bypass
component (i.e., the bipolar transistor, as will be detailed
later), thus leading NMOS A to pinch-off. The pass-
transistor NMOS B is then automatically activated, since
VDSA>VGSA>VTHA, and a fortiori VDSA>VTHB due to the
89
constraint VTHAVTHB; as a result, this device starts
extracting a current IB from the base of the PNP bipolar Isub-panel Idiode
transistor, which is consequently activated. Thus, the
collector current IC coincides with the bypass current. In Vsub-panel
particular, the bipolar transistor is pushed to saturation
mode due to circuit topology (VCB>0 V since Vsub-panel is
positive); consistently, the base current IB is higher than
IC/F, where F is the common-emitter current gain, and, (a)
last but not least, VEC=VEC(sat). The VEC value depends
upon shading level and base current IB. An increase in Isub-panel GA

shading level entails a growth in bypass (i.e., collector) IC Idiode

current, and therefore in VEC. Conversely, for a given Vsub-panel PNP
bipolar
shading condition, a higher IB – which can determined NMOS B
transistor
C
by a proper choice of NMOS transistors A and B, as SB DB B Vsystem
SA
well as of the resistance R – reduces VEC; by following R IB E =-VEC
VDSA VGSB
the design guidelines provided later, VEC can be reduced DA IE
NMOS A
to values in the order of 100 mV for state-of-the-art GB

panels, regardless of the shading conditions of the sub-

(b)
panel. As a consequence, during the bypass phase, the
overall system comprising both the bypass circuit and
sub-panel dissipates a power well lower than that DA PMOS A
GB

corresponding to the historical scheme relying on the VSDA IE Idiode

diode. In principle, NMOSTs A and B should be chosen VSGB
R IB E Vsystem
so as to ensure a high base current IB to push the bipolar SA
DB
B
SB =-VCE
C
transistor in deep saturation, which can be obtained by PMOS B NPN
incrementing VTHA with respect to VTHB; this would Vsub-panel bipolar
transistor
indeed increase VDSA (since VDSA must be higher than IC
Vsub-panel=VGSA>VTHA), and consequently also VGSB. Isub-panel GA

Obviously, a VTHA value far higher than VTHB (i.e., >2 V)
due to e.g., an improper transistor selection worsened by
the uncertainty on the threshold voltages, would push IB
to intolerable values (in the order of Amps) if the
shading level is low (i.e., Isub-panel is a large portion of the
string current). This is avoided by connecting a
resistance R between sources SA and SB, which allows
also establishing the base current value with a higher
level of accuracy at the design stage. As a rule of the
thumb, the choice of (i) VTHB as low as possible, (ii)
0 VVTHA-VTHB<1.5 V, and (iii) R at most equal to a
few Ohms (not to considerably lessen IB), guarantees
good system performance regardless of the shading
level. It must be noted that an erroneous device choice
leading to VTHB>VTHA might inhibit the bipolar transistor
action if the discrepancy exceeds 0.5 V; in this case,
VDSA (and a fortiori VGSB) would be indeed lower than
VTHB, thus maintaining the pass-transistor NMOS B
inactive, which implies IB=0 A.
The same considerations hold for the NPN/PMOS
version of the active bypass system shown in Fig. 1c, the
behavior of which will not be described in detail here,
since it can be evinced from that related to the
PNP/NMOS by simply replacing voltages VGS, VDS,
VTH, VEC with VSG, VSD, |VTH|, VCE, respectively.
In order to provide a better insight into the circuit
behavior, several simulations were performed by
adopting the widespread PSPICE program [12]. In
particular, a string composed of five PV modules, each
subdivided into two 18-cell sub-panels equipped with
bypass systems, was suitably built within the simulator
environment.
(c)
Fig. 1. (a) Traditional bypass scheme relying on a diode; proposed low-
power active bypass systems based on either (b) a PNP or (c) an NPN
bipolar transistor as a bypass component; the solution (b) makes use of
two NMOSTs, while two PMOSTs are exploited in (c), respectively.
It was chosen to describe the string at a single-cell
level in order to allow also the analysis of cases with
unevenly shaded sub-panels. The traditional diodes and
the proposed active systems were alternately applied to
the string. The open-circuit voltage Voc and short-circuit
current Isc of the single cell amount to 0.7 V and 5.9 A,
respectively. The shunt and series resistances were also
accounted for. As a first step, simulations were carried
out by applying a uniform and significant shading
condition to a sub-panel only (obtained by equating all
the PV currents of the cells to 1 A), and considering the
others fully exposed to sunlight. A bipolar junction
transistor (BJT) was selected as a bypass device, even
though any bipolar device could be in principle
employed. Both the threshold voltages VTHA and VTHB
were chosen equal to 1 V to simplify the description,
while R=2 . Results are detailed in Fig. 2. In particular,
Fig. 2a shows the power produced by the whole string as
a function of voltage, as obtained by employing both the
traditional and proposed approaches; the power peak
obtained by invoking the active PNP/NMOS system
amounts to slightly more than 498 W, whereas only
495.5 W are reached when the diode is used. The
increase in generated power P is found to grow for
string voltages higher than that corresponding to the
maximum: P rises to 20 W as the string voltage
approaches 110 V. Conversely, for voltages lower than

90
70 V the power production of the string is shown to be
independent of the bypass strategy. Fig. 2b illustrates all
the key voltages of the active bypass circuit against
string voltage; the voltage drop VEC is equal to 120 mV
when the PNP BJT performs the bypass action, which
proves the benefit of the proposed system, while
available BJT model was enriched to include the positive
temperature coefficient (TC) of F due to the band-gap-
narrowing in the highly-doped emitter. The positive TC
of the PV currents of the fully-irradiated cells due to
bandgap shrinking was described through the accepted
linear model given by
VGSA=1.1 V, VDSA=VGSA+VEC=1.22 V, VGSB=1.03 V. I ph I ph T0   D T  T0  (1)
Fig. 2c evidences that, during the bypass phase, the
where =3.5×10-3 A/K and T0=300 K. The negative TCs
string current imposed by the sunny cells is mostly
of threshold voltage and current mobility are already
conducted by the PNP transistor, since the shaded sub-
accounted for. The study was conducted by assuming
panel can handle 1 A only. The base current IB is equal
two evenly shaded (Iph=1 A, regardless of the sun-
to 94 mA. As the voltage reaches 111 V, the string
induced temperature) sub-panels belonging to the same
current equates the shading-limited Isub-panel, and there is
panel. The generated power peak versus temperature, as
no need for the bypass action any longer: VGSB tends to
obtained by using either the active or the diode-based
0 V, thus turning the BJT off. Subsequently, the voltage
systems is depicted in Fig. 4. As can be seen, both peaks
Vsystem=-VEC becomes positive and rapidly grows with
linearly reduce with temperature due to the enhancing
string voltage.
current handling capability of the inherent (i.e., parasitic)
If the sub-panel is under ideally dark conditions, i.e.,
cell diodes.
all the elementary cells produce a PV current equal to
0 A, NMOS A remains switched off, since it is not 600

required to support current conduction; as a result, (a) 'P=5 W

500 'P=10 W
NMOS B cannot be activated as well, and the voltage
drop Vsub-panel becomes negative, thereby enabling the
String power [W]
400
'P=15 W
diode to conduct the overall string current. 500
Lastly, one should note that, if all sub-panels are fully 300
irradiated, Vsub-panel=VGSA is equal to the string voltage 490

200
divided by 10; when the power peak is reached, this
480
voltage is slightly higher than 10 V, which pushes the 100
80 90 100

traditional bypass diode

NMOS A to deep linear region, whereby VDSA0 V; as a active bypass system PNP/NMOS
consequence, both the pass-transistor NMOS B and the 0
20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100 110 120 130
bypass PNP BJT are kept inactive. String voltage [V]
2.0
III. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION (b)
A first investigation was devoted to quantify the 1.5

improvement in power production of the proposed

Voltages [V]

system compared to the diode by varying the number of 1.0

Vsystem=-VEC
shaded sub-panels in a wide range of shading levels.
VDSA
Fig. 3a reports the power peak as obtained by using 0.5
VGSB
either the PNP/NMOS or diode approaches for 1, 2, 3,
Vsub-panel=VGSA
and 4 shaded sub-panels (belonging to two panels) as a 0.0
function of the PV current of the shaded cells; for the
sake of simplicity, the shading is assumed to be uniform -0.5
20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100 110 120 130
(i.e., the PV currents of all the shaded cells are identical). String voltage [V]
Fig. 3b shows the corresponding difference Pmax
7
between the maximum powers produced by both (c)
methods. The results can be summarized as follows. As 6
the number of shaded sub-panels increases, (i) a 5
reduction occurs in the shading range (i.e., the range of
Currents [A]

Istring
4
shading-affected PV current values) within which the IC
power peak occurs during the bypass action; (ii) in the 3 Isub-panel
aforementioned range, Pmax grows up; in particular, for IB
2
the analyzed case study, this increment can be estimated Idiode
to be about 2.7×N, N being the number of shaded sub- 1
panels. More in general, Pmax=P*×N, where P* depends 0
on the number and features of the cells embedded in the 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100 110 120 130
shaded sub-panels. String voltage [V]
The influence of the operating temperature – assumed Fig. 2. (a) Produced power and key (b) voltages and (c) currents as a
common to both the string and the bypass circuits – was function of string voltage, as obtained by uniformly shading a sub-panel
also examined; in order to cover also hot climatic in a series string of 5 panels, each composed by 2 sub-panels. In (a), the
curves obtained by both the proposed and traditional approaches are
conditions, the analysis was performed up to 360 K. The shown; (b) and (c) refers to the active system only.

91
 600 500
(a) traditional bypass diode
active bypass system PNP/NMOS
Maximum power Pmax [W] 'P=10 W 'P=15 W
400
'P=30 W
1 shaded sub-panel

String power [W]

500
300
1 shaded panel

200
400 3 shaded sub-panels

100
2 shaded panels traditional bypass diode
active bypass system NPN/PMOS
300 0
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100 110 120 130
PV current Iph [A] String voltage [V]
15 Fig. 5. Produced power as a function of string voltage for the case of 3
Maximum power increase 'Pmax [W]

(b) shaded sub-panels, two of which belonging to the same panel. As

2 shaded panels
10
3 shaded sub-panels
1 shaded panel
5
1 shaded sub-panel
0 In this work, a novel active bypass system for shaded
0 1 2 3
PV current Iph [A]
Fig. 3. (a) Maximum power Pmax vs. shading level (i.e., vs. PV current
of the uniformly shaded cells) for 1, 2, 3, and 4 shaded sub-panels
belonging to two panels; both the cases of diode-based and proposed
PNP/NMOS bypass approaches are considered; (b) corresponding
power peak improvement Pmax.
The figure also reveals that the performance of the
classical bypass diode reduces at a slightly lower rate
compared to the proposed strategy. This is obviously due
to the lower voltage drop exhibited by the diode for an
assigned bypass current. Conveniently, the (linear)
reduction of the enhancement in power peak achieved
with the active bypass is marginal (it does not exceed
25% by sweeping the temperature from 300 to 360 K).
Various analyses performed on the NPN/PMOS
circuit shown in Fig. 1c allowed evidencing that the
performances of the two active system versions are
almost identical. Fig. 5 illustrates the comparison
between the NPN/PMOS and traditional diode
approaches, for the case of 3 shaded sub-panels.
450
'Pmax=5.5 W
Maximum power Pmax [W]
concerns the sub-panels common to the same panel, the first exhibits all
cells uniformly sharing a PV current of 1 A, while the second is
unevenly shaded: half cells (9) are totally obscured, while the others are
characterized by a PV current of 1 A. All the cells of the last sub-panel
generate a PV current amounting to 3 A. Both the cases of diode-based
and proposed NPN/PMOS bypass systems are considered.
IV. CONCLUSION
4 5 6
PV panels has been presented, which allows (i) a higher
power production of the panel arrays compared to the
traditional – and widespread – diode-based approach
without a significant increase in circuit complexity; (ii) a
reduction in hot spot occurrences within the sub-panel.
With this approach, the power dissipated by the circuit
involving the shaded sub-panel and the bypass system is
suitably minimized due to the low voltage drop across
the bypass component, i.e., a bipolar transistor operated
in saturation mode, which is automatically activated by
two MOSTs only. Two equivalent versions of the
system can be adopted, namely, one involving a PNP
bipolar transistor and a pair of NMOSTs, and another
with an NPN device and two PMOSTs. An extensive
analysis performed by varying shading level, number of
shaded sub-panels, and operating temperature has
allowed quantifying the beneficial impact of the
proposed approach. In particular, it has been found that
the improvement in power peak performance with
respect to the standard diode-based scheme increases
proportionally with the number of shaded sub-panels.
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425
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92
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