The Lone Star State not only leads the country in terms of wind power capacity, but also is poised to overtake California as the top solar market. Whether the United States does its part to avert a global climate crisis could very well hinge on the solar industry’s ability to weather Texas hailstorms.

kWh Analytics’ fifth annual Solar Risk Assessment is out now, featuring hail risk insights from RETC’s Hail Durability Test (HDT) program. Aggregated HDT data show that modules made with tempered glass are approximately twice as resilient to hail impacts as those with heat-strengthened glass.

World leaders are counting on the U.S. to do its part to mitigate a global climate crisis—and the U.S. cannot achieve its climate-risk mitigation goals without Texas solar. Whether these efforts succeed could hinge on the solar industry’s ability to weather West Texas hailstorms.

Large-diameter hail risk is inevitable in some parts of the world, but large project losses are not. John Sedgwick, president of engineering advisory firm VDE Americas, shares some lessons learned about—and best practices for identifying, quantifying, and mitigating—severe hail risk in fielded solar assets.

American-Made Program awards $50,000 to VDE Americas-led Solar Prize team that uses RETC’s Hail Durability Test data. The Hail Cat team is developing a web-based software platform that will allow stakeholders to identify, quantify, and mitigate natural catastrophe (Nat Cat) perils associated with severe hail.

Join RETC, VDE Americas, and CAC Specialty for a pv magazine-hosted webinar on January 18, 2023. Our featured subject matter experts will share lessons learned about and best practices for identifying, quantifying, and mitigating severe hail risk based on project location and fielded PV module technology.

Since 2015, insured solar project losses associated with extreme weather events are roughly twice the magnitude of those stemming from natural catastrophes. Viewed as a learning opportunity for project stakeholders, this breakdown of weather-related losses is enlightening.

In May 2019, hail damaged some 400,000 modules at the Midway Solar generating facility in West Texas, resulting in a previously unimaginable $80 million in insured losses. Recognizing that basic certification test standards are inadequate to identify and quantify the project risks associated with hail, RETC developed its innovative Hail Durability Test (HDT) program.