Solar panels are feeling the heat too: How heatwave temperatures are hampering solar power

Solar Damper Days of scorching sun are fuelling Europe’s grid with record-breaking amounts of solar power - but the current heatwave is actually bad news for solar panels.

Solar Damper In Germany, a record amount of electricity was generated by solar power on Sunday, while most of the country was placed under an excessive heat warning.Solar Tracking Controller,

Even more solar power is expected to be generated in the coming days, as western Europe braces itself for a heatwave many countries have never seen before.Solar Tracking Controller,

And yet these record-breaking amounts of solar power are far from what the country’s solar panels could have achieved if the temperatures had been a little lower.

Planetary gear motor, While more solar-generated energy could be seen as a silver lining of what’s likely to be a “killer” heatwave, the heat is actually hampering solar panels.

Counter-intuitively, hotter, sunnier days do not equal more power, as rising temperatures actually hinder the capacity of solar panels to collect energy.

How does it work?Planetary gear motor,

Solar panels absorb sunlight with their photovoltaic cells, with the photons soaked in by the panels knocking electrons loose from their atoms and forming an electrical circuit within the semiconductors of the panel, generating a flow of electricity.Lithium battery

Lithium battery Most solar panels are tested at a temperature of 25 degrees Celsius, an ideal temperature at which this process occurs within solar panels under optimal circumstances.

Solar tracker actuator But above this temperature, no matter how bright the sun is shining, efficiency starts going south for the panels.

The heat causes an excessive number of the panel's electrons - the ones responsible for converting energy from the sun into electricity - to be excited, Solar tracker actuator eventually reducing the panel’s generated voltage and its efficiency.

The impact is not minimal. High temperatures can decrease the efficiency of solar panels by 10 to 25 per cent, according to data shared by .

For every degree Celsius more reported by a solar panel, its efficiency drops by 0.5 percentage points, according to