I had the same question. these are some thoughts.
i am not an expert and do not play one on tv, but often things are designed for one purpose that suits that purpose best, and not nessisarily everyones purpose under the sun :-)
and the answer (like many answers) is yes and no
Yes
there IS a place that the solar cells will output a minor ammount of amps at 1/2 thier voltage.
No
you dont really have a lot (or even usefull) amps untill there is enough sun that it is very close to the voltage for the cell.
SO
Overvoltaging a Bit, so you are charging a battery , instead of at its same voltage is a good thing. overvoltaging a LOT is not usefull, as there is not much power even comming out of them when at 1/2 thier voltage.
some figures i got. 3a e-bay cells
open voltage when there is enough light for .1A .43v
Open voltage when there is 1A of power .45v
because this is kinda important to my project, which is simple charging of some li-ion cells, i will test this further, after all i am just testing anyways.
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the THEORY
when CHARGING something with unregulated charging , as the voltage differential gets lower, the flow of current will reduce.
IS there a place where a much higher voltage differential provides for a much higher current?
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this would be true in other unregulated things, if it is true for solor cells i will test for its potential use in charging circuits, and get back to here.
with regulated charging , its all going to be totally dependant on the circuitry stuff that is used. some regulated charging curcuits would turn your overvoltage into total waste heat, or even ruin them.
You see with that same question in mind, i was trying to figure out a (simple) way to switch to more series than parrellel when the potential differential is so low between the cells and the battery during a cloudy day, that there is 0 charging instead of .01 charging :-).
like a relay that dropped out when the voltage is to low, and switched the pannel from parellel to series, to increase the output voltage.
It does not look practical or usefull to do that.
it looks more like a 1.5v battery when its at 1.0v so much of it is gone at that point, putting 2 of them together is not going to help enough, because there is not enough current no mater how you stack it. (like not enough when its cloudy)
Newbie