monocrystalline/Poly vs amorphous in low light

[gotwind2]

Hello all.
I've been hunting high and low for some data on the same power rated monocrystalline/polycrystaline solar PV compared to the less expensive glass amorphous (thin film) solar panels in low light or clouded conditions, I can't find anything conclusive 

I appreciate the efficiency is a lot less, and amorphous is near twice the size/area of monocrystalline/polycrystaline.
I constantly read amorphous performs better in low light conditions, I'm just wondering if anyone has some real world data or experience of this?

Any info appreciated.

[mab]

The performance depends on the quality (and cost) of amorphous.

I have some unisolar ES64's thin film and some monocrystalline panels. I find that the ratio of amps from the two sets stays the about the same in all conditions - i.e. both types hold their volts well.

Some years back I did have some cheap glass amorphous panels which put out ~17voc in full sun but as soon as a bit of cloud appeared they dropped below 12v - useless - I've not bought any of these since (for obvious reasons) so I can't tell you if they've improved or not.

To answer the original question: no the unisolar don't perform any better (or worse) in low light, but they are much better than the monocrystalline when it comes to shadows as each of the 11 cells has a bypass diode - a shadow covering one cell causes a 10-15% drop in amps for the unisolar and a huge (60%+) drop for the crystalline.

m

[ghurd]

I rarely play with amorphous, but it seems the percentages stay about the same, like mab said.

Not sure about the bypass diodes in the ES64s.

Each 'stripe' in amorphous is sort of similar to a cell in crystalline.
Cover one and the output drops to about nothing.
I keep telling myself to video a quick test.  Never got a round tuit.

The sellers carefully word the sales pitches to make it sound like amorphous works better in low light, but I never found that true.  Other sellers do not know what they are talking about, and reword their sales pitch to what they thing the ones they read said, so it comes out completely incorrect.
Shade a 4x4" corner of a crystalline panel and the output drops to about nothing because a cell is shaded.
Shade a 4x4" corner of a amorphous and the output drops less because only part of some 'cells' are shaded.
It depends on WHAT is shaded.