One hailstorm is bad enough, but a trio of hailstorms striking three metropolitan areas in one night is almost unheard of. Baseball- to softball-size hail pummeled parts of Texas and Oklahoma on Wednesday night, slamming places around Fort Worth, San Antonio and Oklahoma City, including Norman.
The damage will almost certainly exceed $1 billion. Hail has historically been the most costly severe weather hazard in the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex, and Wednesday night’s storms illustrate why.
“It quickly became clear that we were almost certainly facing a billion-dollar event,” wrote Steve Bowen, head of catastrophe insight at Aon Insurance. “Unfortunately, we saw significant hail swaths impact highly exposed areas around San Antonio, Fort Worth, and Norman.”
They didn’t mention solar panels in the hail reports, I notice.
Most solar panel providers certify against damage by hail stones up to one inch in diameter – as this extreme Texas storm event produced hailstones up to around 4 inches, I expect there was some damage as there was for roofs in general. Most home insurance companies cover hail damage as the solar system installed on the roof is part of your building, so hopefully Texan people with solar panels were insured. Much of the reporting seems to focus on the considerable damage to cars and buildings, have not seen any report on solar panels in particular yet. Moral is:If you fit home solar panels make sure you have good home insurance.
Seems some thought is being carried out on hail protection for solar panels, another reason why we should not just rely on just one type of energy source ?.
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“The destructive potential of hail on solar arrays has only been fully realized in the last two years. In this series, pv magazine talks with experts in storm modeling, risk insurance, and damage mitigation to learn how solar arrays can survive nature’s wrath.”
https://www.pv-magazine.com/2021/03/19/storm-season-has-the-us-solar-industry-looking-to-protect-assets-from-costly-hail-damage/
“The hailstones that do make it down may be larger, like a meteorite that’s big enough to make it through the atmosphere without burning up completely. That’s a concern for insurance companies and farmers, whose crops can be damaged by even small hail.”
https://eos.org/articles/severe-hailstorms-are-costly-and-hard-to-predict