A Golden, Colorado based National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) recently faced a serious setback after Mother Nature’s huge hail stones pounded the solar power systems. A Denver Post reveals how hailstorms caused havoc earlier this week, wreaking immense damage. Hail stones with a length of 7cm descended on cars, people and infrastructure, leaving behind a trail of destruction. Surprisingly, the onslaught from above has proven to be the most disastrous hail storms ever seen in the Denver region.
The area hosts the Golden, Colorado NREL’s Offices and Laboratories which did not escape the wrath of the huge hail stones.
According to CBS Local news reports, several vehicles belonging to employees of NREL suffered heavy damage from the hail stones, yet the damage to the facility’s solar panels was not severe.
Only a single solar panel out of the total 3,168 solar panels installed on NREL’s Research Support Facility was damaged by during the hail storm.
According to international standards (IEC61215), a good quality solar panel should be able to withstand hail stones of up to 25mm in diameter, weighing about 7.53 grams and moving at a velocity of 23m/sec (82.8km/hour).
In particular, tier 1 solar panels are designed to endure bigger hail stones that travel at a faster speeds.
TUV America states that:
The test equipment is a unique launcher capable of propelling various weights of ice balls at the specified velocities so as to hit the module at 11 specified impact locations +/- 10mm distance variation. The time between the removal of the ice ball from the cold storage container and impact on the module shall not exceed 60s.
The video below illustrates a “quick and dirty” experiment with high-pressured pneumatic cannon full of ice, metal and plastic balls.
Solar panels’ resilience to weights including that of large hailstones is due to the superior quality tempered glass that is 3-4mm in thickness. And in case of damage, the glass does not smash into shards, but rather breaks it into tiny pieces that retain their initial form.
Just like with any module, the quality of tempered glass incorporated in most solar panel brands differ. It’s encouraging to know that great quality solar modules can withstand the chunk of what Mother Nature may possibly throw at them.
But, if you reside in a region that is prone to wild storms like the Queensland hail storms of 2018, as part of your due diligence, it would be worthwhile to choose a solar power system that can survive any size or amount of hail stones.
APVI says that:
“Hail testing is mandatory under Australian and international PV standards. IEC 61215 and IEC 61645 for crystalline and thin film modules respectively require modules to survive 25mm diameter ice balls fired at 23m/s on 11 points across the module for the Moderate Hail Test (Class MH) or 75mm under the Severe Hail Damage Resistance Test (Class SH) (TUV Rheinland 2009).”
