Arbitrarily sizable broad-area lighting system

A lighting system comprising:

• a lightsheet comprising:
• a substrate;
• a first power conductor disposed on the substrate;
• a second power conductor disposed on the substrate and electrically isolated from the first power conductor;
• and
• a plurality of light-emitting strings each electrically connected between and being energizable via the first and second power conductors, wherein each light-emitting string comprises a plurality of electrically connected illumination units,
• wherein each illumination unit comprises (i) one or more electrically connected light-emitting elements, and (ii) a bypass element (a) electrically connected across the first and second power conductors and (b) configured to transition from a high-impedance state to a low-impedance state and thereby complete a circuit between the first and second power conductors upon removal of the one or more light-emitting elements of the illumination unit from the lightsheet, whereby energization of unremoved light-emitting elements within the light-emitting string is maintained.