Panel degradation under open circuit

[HCx]

First off, My apologies if this has already been discussed but a search did not lead to any meaningful results.
I recently got my off grid solar array installed and running but I'm running into an 'issue' where my system fully charges my batteries before noon causing my system to sit at ~5-10% load for the remainder of the day.

according to this study STUDY LINK this will lead to a small, but noticeable amount of degradation compared to a panel that sits at 100% load all day (as it would be under a grid tie sell back scenario)
I'm curious to see if anyone that's been doing this longer has noticed higher than expected panel degradation in these types of scenarios and how bad it ended up being. As far as I can tell I'd have to keep my system loaded at approximately 40% to keep the under load voltage appreciably below open circuit which might be challenging to make happen reliably.

 

[zanydroid]

There would be extra heat in the solar panels. Under load solar panels convert 80% of incoming radiation into heat with 20% getting “sinked” out the wires.

Keep in mind that the money you spend on adding and maintaining diversion loads might be better spent banking it for adding more panels in the future. If you add a bunch of $50 space heaters and put them outside the house (so net energy into your house is unchanged), that’s probably cheap but a liability and requires building/maintaining a diversion system.

If you install a proper safe 3kW wall mount heater to code… pretty sure that can instead buy a few more solar panels.

 

[OzSolar]

Ooh... this is an interesting topic. Never been discussed AFAIK. I've got to get back to loading the truck up for tomorrow's solar projects but I do want to study that link some more.

The easy answer is that it's likely not a problem in the "real world". EG: 10,15,20 years from now, all things exactly equal your system will be full by 2 pm and in float vs. the before noon today. The net result is that it doesn't matter to you because you're still meeting your needs. FWIW: I've got many 20 years old arrays still cranking out the same 80% of nameplate they were the day I installed them. Not sure what that says but I've not seen much degradation in the field in my small unscientific sample.

 

[12VoltInstalls]

I do not believe that there is any practical concern for you. You want to be charged up before noon as the ‘extra’ capacity is useful in inclement weather where you might only get 20% or less charge under clouds.