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| Solar farm wrecked by giant hail! |
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| Red Squirrel:
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. |
| floobydust:
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. |
| Siwastaja:
--- Quote from: SiliconWizard 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"). --- End quote --- 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. |
| voltsandjolts:
--- Quote from: SiliconWizard 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. --- End quote --- Unfortunately, I read this as a general statement about human history. War, famine, genocide, ecocide, etc. Were you talking just about solar? |
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