The claim still stands: four independent MPPT channels mean a shaded panel is "held to itself rather
than pulling its neighbours down," and against a string inverter, wired in series, the Quad wins on
shade. Full wording and citations at /applications/towers/.
Four channels, one weak link
Shade one. Watch the other three.
Same cloud, two architectures — a string inverter wired in series behind, a Quad with independent
tracking per panel in front. Click a panel to shade it in both rows at once.
The claim, from /applications/towers/, with its own citations there: "Four DC input channels,
each with its own peak-power tracking. A shaded or soiled module is held to itself rather than pulling
its neighbours down." · "Against a string inverter the Quad wins on shade." · 4 PV modules per Quad
unit · panel-level DC at 40–60V against 400–700V for a string inverter, because there is no string to
manage.
The two percentages aren't theirs. They're this piece's own simplified model of series
current-matching: panels in series share one current, so one shaded panel caps the whole string;
independent tracking means a shaded panel only costs its own quarter. The string's number gets worse,
not flat, as more panels shade — and was built deliberately not to collapse to zero, since ignoring
bypass diodes to overstate a competitor's loss is a mistake this gallery already made once, on the live
site, and corrected. Sparq's own published shade test is linked from the towers page; this piece
hasn't read it.
string · in series
100%
quad · independent
100%
drag to look around · scroll or pinch to zoom · click a panel to shade it