Author Topic: Solar farm wrecked by giant hail!  (Read 4071 times)

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

Online tautech

  • Super Contributor
  • ***
  • Posts: 29812
  • Country: nz
  • Taupaki Technologies Ltd. Siglent Distributor NZ.
    • Taupaki Technologies Ltd.
Re: Solar farm wrecked by giant hail!
« Reply #25 on: July 05, 2023, 07:46:01 am »
   Tom66 has it right, you have to consider that conventional coal fired plants have the distribution issues where individual pockets of damage happen, regularly, such as tree falling on overhead wires...so it could end up being a wash as to which major system is at the most risk.
Seems like the distribution infrastructure dominates the economics, with the generation plant being a close second.
   That, however, still means that HAIL damage is a serious concern.
Only because authorities are too gutless to insist any tree that can reach/compromise critical power infrastructure should have a death warrant out on it.
Not in Germany :D At least not 20 years back.
I vividly remember a troop of forest workers cutting a lane through a small piece of forest where our overhead line went through. That line was only 220 volts, so not much was actually cut, a falling tree would still have been able to knock it down i think, but anything in danger to actually touch the line was cut.
This was on our land, and we had to pay for that every couple of years.

By now the line has been buried though, as have been almost all power lines in my area.
Transmission lines through private land is a double edged sword in that if it only supplies the landowner then only their supply is at risk however if the infrastructure goes on to supply others then it must be protected, be it on private or public land.

Here in NZ the tree huggers kick up such a fuss over any tree maintenance however where we are in a rural location cooking, eating and living by candlelight is from another long past century !

Some just can't understand how lives have been so dramatically improved by the provision of power so to not need to cut vast tracts of trees for firewood and cooking so the few that endanger power infrastructure would be of no loss to society when in fact their loss would be of more value to humanity.
Avid Rabid Hobbyist.
Some stuff seen @ Siglent HQ cannot be shared.
 

Offline NiHaoMike

  • Super Contributor
  • ***
  • Posts: 9322
  • Country: us
  • "Don't turn it on - Take it apart!"
    • Facebook Page
Re: Solar farm wrecked by giant hail!
« Reply #26 on: July 05, 2023, 01:14:20 pm »
Here in NZ the tree huggers kick up such a fuss over any tree maintenance however where we are in a rural location cooking, eating and living by candlelight is from another long past century !

Some just can't understand how lives have been so dramatically improved by the provision of power so to not need to cut vast tracts of trees for firewood and cooking so the few that endanger power infrastructure would be of no loss to society when in fact their loss would be of more value to humanity.
They should rally against factory farming contributing to deforestation in Brazil.
Cryptocurrency has taught me to love math and at the same time be baffled by it.

Cryptocurrency lesson 0: Altcoins and Bitcoin are not the same thing.
 

Offline schmitt trigger

  • Super Contributor
  • ***
  • Posts: 2431
  • Country: mx
Re: Solar farm wrecked by giant hail!
« Reply #27 on: July 05, 2023, 01:52:37 pm »
One of engineering salient traits is that after a failure, it investigates the root causes, analyzes the failure mechanisms, designs the appropriate corrective actions, test them, incorporate them into the “lessons learned” and move on with life.

A company I worked for in the late 90s had a gigantic “archive of mistakes” which was amazing to read. Many of the issues were obvious, but again, hindsight is always 20/20.
 

Offline langwadt

  • Super Contributor
  • ***
  • Posts: 4857
  • Country: dk
Re: Solar farm wrecked by giant hail!
« Reply #28 on: July 05, 2023, 02:09:49 pm »
One of engineering salient traits is that after a failure, it investigates the root causes, analyzes the failure mechanisms, designs the appropriate corrective actions, test them, incorporate them into the “lessons learned” and move on with life.

A company I worked for in the late 90s had a gigantic “archive of mistakes” which was amazing to read. Many of the issues were obvious, but again, hindsight is always 20/20.

experience is proportional to the price of broken gear
 

Offline SiliconWizard

  • Super Contributor
  • ***
  • Posts: 15800
  • Country: fr
Re: Solar farm wrecked by giant hail!
« Reply #29 on: July 05, 2023, 08:44:02 pm »
Yes, the problem is when:
- we keep repeating mistakes that were either obvious from the get-go with SoA knowledge;
- we keep repeating mistakes that we already made before;
- we don't investigate the root causes and move on ("shit happens").

While I admit that the first one can happen occasionally even with the best intentions, the two others are unfortunately too frequent and not really defendable.

 

Offline bdunham7

  • Super Contributor
  • ***
  • Posts: 8178
  • Country: us
Re: Solar farm wrecked by giant hail!
« Reply #30 on: July 05, 2023, 08:54:34 pm »
I wonder how hard/expensive it would be to just take them off one-by-one and replace the glass?  I'm guessing they could reclaim 90%+ of those for a fraction of the cost of new.
A 3.5 digit 4.5 digit 5 digit 5.5 digit 6.5 digit 7.5 digit DMM is good enough for most people.
 

Offline coppice

  • Super Contributor
  • ***
  • Posts: 10035
  • Country: gb
Re: Solar farm wrecked by giant hail!
« Reply #31 on: July 05, 2023, 08:58:37 pm »
If this was an exceptional event, damage is probably just something you have to live with. Hail rarely comes down in cricket balls sized lumps, so engineering to take such impacts probably just pushes up overall costs. A friend took a picture of a street in an affluent part of Beijing some years ago, when cricket ball sized hail fell. There were a lot of very expensive cars in a very sorry state. Hoods and trunks heavily dented. Most of the glass broken. The reasonable response to that is not to reinforce every car produced.
 

Offline thm_w

  • Super Contributor
  • ***
  • Posts: 7527
  • Country: ca
  • Non-expert
Re: Solar farm wrecked by giant hail!
« Reply #32 on: July 05, 2023, 09:52:09 pm »
I wonder how hard/expensive it would be to just take them off one-by-one and replace the glass?  I'm guessing they could reclaim 90%+ of those for a fraction of the cost of new.

Its going to be a huge pain to remove the glass. Maybe with heat and a lot of manual processing... maybe, if it is a mild adhesive.




Man I feel bad for these guys breathing in the glass:

Profile -> Modify profile -> Look and Layout ->  Don't show users' signatures
 
The following users thanked this post: MT, SiliconWizard

Offline NiHaoMike

  • Super Contributor
  • ***
  • Posts: 9322
  • Country: us
  • "Don't turn it on - Take it apart!"
    • Facebook Page
Re: Solar farm wrecked by giant hail!
« Reply #33 on: July 06, 2023, 12:11:57 am »
I wonder how hard/expensive it would be to just take them off one-by-one and replace the glass?  I'm guessing they could reclaim 90%+ of those for a fraction of the cost of new.
I would paint a layer of resin or other sealant over the ones that still work to seal them, then just keep using them.
Cryptocurrency has taught me to love math and at the same time be baffled by it.

Cryptocurrency lesson 0: Altcoins and Bitcoin are not the same thing.
 

Offline vk6zgo

  • Super Contributor
  • ***
  • Posts: 7858
  • Country: au
Re: Solar farm wrecked by giant hail!
« Reply #34 on: July 06, 2023, 12:25:12 am »
Here in NZ the tree huggers kick up such a fuss over any tree maintenance however where we are in a rural location cooking, eating and living by candlelight is from another long past century !

Some just can't understand how lives have been so dramatically improved by the provision of power so to not need to cut vast tracts of trees for firewood and cooking so the few that endanger power infrastructure would be of no loss to society when in fact their loss would be of more value to humanity.
They should rally against factory farming contributing to deforestation in Brazil.
They do!

PS:  Oops!, Sorry, I read it as farming in Brazil-----as in cutting down trees in great swathes to allow normal farming.
The people who rally against factory farming are not worried so much about the environment, but about animal welfare.
« Last Edit: July 06, 2023, 01:14:28 am by vk6zgo »
 

Offline Red Squirrel

  • Super Contributor
  • ***
  • Posts: 2757
  • Country: ca
Re: Solar farm wrecked by giant hail!
« Reply #35 on: July 06, 2023, 01:50:52 am »
Ouch that sucks.  That's my fear with having solar.  I plan to add a larger array and due to nature of my yard the most effective way to set them up is to put them flat as they need to be high up to get sun and putting them at an angle would have them ridiculously high. By having them flat it will make them even more vulnerable as the hail will hit them more directly.  Though considering these were angled I guess it doesn't matter that much either way.  Hail does come in at an angle sometimes so if unlucky it will hit them dead on as well.   

Hail also tends to come out of nowhere too so it would be really hard to prepare for.  Like you could have some kind of plywood cover you can put on but you won't have time to actually go do that when the hail actually starts to hit.  Would need to be able to fully automate deployment but that means it needs to stow away somehow and take up extra space.  I guess you could put the plywood behind the panels and have the panels rotate out, but then you're now dealing with mechanical things that also have to be strong enough to handle very strong winds. 
 

Offline floobydust

  • Super Contributor
  • ***
  • Posts: 7681
  • Country: ca
Re: Solar farm wrecked by giant hail!
« Reply #36 on: July 06, 2023, 02:18:12 am »
Hail in Nebraska? Who'd have thought...   ;) It's unfortunate that the insurance claim for this is going to drive up costs. Assuming a claim can be made as the panel's safety tilt system was obviously not deployed.  As if it would work having the backside to the hail, the wiring/junction boxes would then get trashed instead.
I'm suspicious there are quite a few panels with no damage, as if the glass is oddly stronger than the others but they show well over 10 breaks. Someone mentioned "resonance" but there could be variance in the glass strength.

I think you could have a roll out webbing/tent canopy that sits high above the panels. Like a fine fishnet to catch the hail or let it spill off the ends. No metal poles to attract lightning though.
You need the rollers and frame to sweep across panels in winter to remove snow, so having it with a cover should be something that can be done.
 

Offline Siwastaja

  • Super Contributor
  • ***
  • Posts: 9336
  • Country: fi
Re: Solar farm wrecked by giant hail!
« Reply #37 on: July 06, 2023, 06:46:59 am »
Yes, the problem is when:
- we keep repeating mistakes that were either obvious from the get-go with SoA knowledge;
- we keep repeating mistakes that we already made before;
- we don't investigate the root causes and move on ("shit happens").

Generally couldn't agree more, but I think weather damage for solar panels has been very well root-cause-analyzed and PV panel manufacturing adjusted (e.g., glass thickness and materials) as a response. At some point we are at equilibrium where low hanging design improvements have been made and all that is left are the rare "shit happens" scenarios. Just like we don't build our car bodies out of 5mm thick steel but accept a hailstorm can destroy a car. Or we don't equip normal cars to survive and run in 3-feet deep water, but only do so in special cases. It makes no sense to make the PV panel cost say 20% more if that means the failure rate goes down from 0.1% to 0.07% (there would be still other failure modes than physical damage).

Of course I could be wrong and maybe those particular panels were weaker than industry average. What I'm saying is, industry average is pretty much fine, the amount of PV capacity installed and running without any issues is mind-boggling.
 
The following users thanked this post: nctnico, newbrain

Offline voltsandjolts

  • Supporter
  • ****
  • Posts: 2549
  • Country: gb
Re: Solar farm wrecked by giant hail!
« Reply #38 on: July 06, 2023, 08:21:07 am »
Yes, the problem is when:
- we keep repeating mistakes that were either obvious from the get-go with SoA knowledge;
- we keep repeating mistakes that we already made before;
- we don't investigate the root causes and move on ("shit happens").

While I admit that the first one can happen occasionally even with the best intentions, the two others are unfortunately too frequent and not really defendable.

Unfortunately, I read this as a general statement about human history.
War, famine, genocide, ecocide, etc.
Were you talking just about solar?

 


Share me

Digg  Facebook  SlashDot  Delicious  Technorati  Twitter  Google  Yahoo
Smf