Hail damage in Texas.

[Leeds]

I've driven past the solar farms off of rt 36 for years. They put up all of the racks years and years ago and never put the panels on them.

It always seemed odd to me that they'd put in so much money but not actually make it functional. It seemed like there was some sort of scam going on since it made no sense to pay so much without trying to actually complete the project.

It's odd that the tweet suggests that these are the panels that were broken in a hail storm. Odder yet that there is no mention of this on any news site or any other place on the internet.

Who is this Corey Thompson person? What is his motivation for this fabrication?

 

[seneysolar]

I'm sorry, but have you met our judicial system of late? Someone will cry that the storm caused catastrophic damage and that a state of emergency needs to be declared and federal funds allocated. Watch and see if that doesn't happen.

Thats not how disaster relief works. This is no different than the local airport that happened to have a new Boeing airliner sitting outside with hail damage.

The government does offer low interest loans to help rebuild for private entities. The "free money" goes to local branches of government for cleanup.

If you are concerned about tax dollars going towards solar, everyone in America gets a 30% tax credit on installed solar... been going on for years... its a very very large number.

 

[timselectric]

Wow - imagine the damage to cars, roofing, anything really.
Did any Forum Members get hit by this?, or was it isolated to a small local area where conditions were just right for this to happen?

I'm sure that someone will blame the solar panels for the weather.

 

[timselectric]

On Long Island we had a utility called Long Island Lighting Company. The local
politicians put them out of business when they tried to open a nuke plant to provide clean affordable power, and they "took over" the business for the "peoples sake", to keep prices low.
They renamed it the Long Island Power Authority.
Now everyones prices have skyrocketed, they cant keep the power on in storms, and the taxpayers had to subsidized all the repairs after hurricane Sandy. There is no recourse, as its government owned and run.
Just a warning to make sure in your area you vote out anyone trying to take over your local utility.

Nobody is taking over my local utility. lol

 

[G00SE]

yeah... but how big is that?

Slightly larger than the ones that bounced off, sir

 

[robbob2112]

I've driven past the solar farms off of rt 36 for years. They put up all of the racks years and years ago and never put the panels on them.

It always seemed odd to me that they'd put in so much money but not actually make it functional. It seemed like there was some sort of scam going on since it made no sense to pay so much without trying to actually complete the project.

It's odd that the tweet suggests that these are the panels that were broken in a hail storm. Odder yet that there is no mention of this on any news site or any other place on the internet.

Who is this Corey Thompson person? What is his motivation for this fabrication?

It might be similar to the phone company.... the have to amortize off new fiber and conduit for 7 years..... the can't write off repairs or upgrades until it is no longer considered 'new'.... business tax codes.

 

[crossy]

I'm sure that someone will blame the solar panels for the weather.

A US town rejected solar panels amid fears ‘they’d suck up all the energy from sun’

A retired science teacher said she was concerned the panels would prevent plants in the area from growing

www.independent.co.uk

A US town has rejected a proposal for a solar farm following public concerns.

Members of the public in Woodland, North Carolina, expressed their fear and mistrust at the proposal to allow Strata Solar Company to build a solar farm off Highway 258.

During the Woodland Town Council meeting, one local man, Bobby Mann, said solar farms would suck up all the energy from the sun and businesses would not go to Woodland, the Roanoke-Chowan News Herald reported.

 

[Brucey]

"Jane Mann, a retired science teacher, said she was concerned the panels would prevent plants in the area from photosynthesizing, stopping them from growing.

Ms Mann said she had seen areas near solar panels where plants are brown and dead because they did not get enough sunlight."

Stuff that's in perpetual shade prob isn't going to grow much. Trust in the science....

 

[gotbeans]

I thought panels were more resilient? I'm about to start looking at panels and live around Texas / Oklahoma border so I want good panels that have decent hail resistance. Any brands or special certifications to look for on panels for this?

https://twitter.com/x/status/1772339177264148491

I wonder if their mount tension was different or something thermal went on as well, because simply hitting them with hail and even golf balls usually does nothing.

Santan Solar is licking their chops!

"Cracked front glass, does not affect power output or dielectric properties"

lol
I have some massively cracked ones in my array, working fine for like 6 months.
All the posts I've read say to remove them, but all my inverters say to keep them.

Wow - imagine the damage to cars, roofing, anything really.
Did any Forum Members get hit by this?, or was it isolated to a small local area where conditions were just right for this to happen?

Isolated hail storms there and some other places. Several tornadoes going on.
I & family were hit by the storm (in different states) but it was just rain for me, they had tornado.

In colorado denver area several years back we had hail like that, some malls etc had their entire roofing destroyed and closed down for year+
I was at a best buy watching it destroy all the cars in the dealerships

A year after hailstorm, Colorado Mills still recovering from darkened store fronts and lighter foot traffic

One year after Colorado’s costliest natural disaster struck metro Denver, repairs are still underway at Colorado Mills mall — one of the biggest buildings to get battered by the massive…

www.denverpost.com

I guess it was 2017 it happened
our panels were fine there too, was worse in the mountains

 

[OffGridForGood]

Agro-voltaics...

Glad Ms Mann wasn't MY science teacher.

 

[xcentric]

[deleted]

 

[timselectric]

I've seen news stories about large solar fields.
I didn't really pay attention to what was said.
But it looked like these large arrays attracted wild goats and sheep. They appeared to be eating all of the vegetation in the area.
I'm not the kind of person who spreads rumors. But I think this could be the end of the world. lol

 

[SparkyJJO]

I'm not the kind of person who spreads rumors. But I think this could be the end of the world. lol

As we know it.

And I feel fine.

 

[robbob2112]

The planet will be eaten by a star-goat and only Golgafrinchan Ark Fleet Ship B will survive.

"The Golgafrinchan Ark Fleet Ship B was a way of removing the basically useless citizens from the planet of Golgafrincham. A variety of stories were formed about the doom of the planet, such as blowing up, crashing into the sun or being eaten by a mutant star goat. The ship was filled with all the middlemen of Golgafrincham, such as the telephone sanitisers, account executives, hairdressers, tired TV producers, insurance salesmen, personnel officers, security guards, public relations executives, and management consultants."

 

[OffGridForGood]

What the HAIL??

 

[OffGridForGood]

Ms Mann said she had seen areas near solar panels where plants are brown and dead because they did not get enough sunlight."

Solar farms use herbicides to control plant growth near the PV arrays.

 

[Doggydogworld]

ok, gotta think about making the tilting system go right up to 90-degrees, then add some 1/4 inch steel plate along the top edge, a couple feet wide, and tell the hail it's only allowed to come straight down...

Big hail comes straight down, except in a tornado. Gravity trumps wind.

Hail here in TX can bash through car windows. You do not want to be out in the open! I drove into some medium hail a few years ago (in a convertible, ha) and cracked my front windshield. Big hail is very localized, thankfully. Maybe a few hundred acres for a few minutes. Surrounding areas mostly get small/medium hail, some none at all.

 

[crossy]

Solar farms use herbicides to control plant growth near the PV arrays.

Meanwhile in the UK we use sheep.

Baa.

How solar panel diversification is working for a sheep enterprise - Farmers Weekly

Leasing land to a company for a 47MW solar park is generating a reliable income for farmers Stephen and Clare Morgan, at Fenton Home Farm, near

www.fwi.co.uk

"Agrivoltaics" is definitely a growing idea, if you don't completely cover the area with panels you can grow shade-loving plants underneath.

 

[gotbeans]

Meanwhile in the UK we use sheep.

Baa.

How solar panel diversification is working for a sheep enterprise - Farmers Weekly

Leasing land to a company for a 47MW solar park is generating a reliable income for farmers Stephen and Clare Morgan, at Fenton Home Farm, near

www.fwi.co.uk

View attachment 205421

"Agrivoltaics" is definitely a growing idea, if you don't completely cover the area with panels you can grow shade-loving plants underneath.

too green for the USA
we use agent orange all over our fields like real men

 

[sunsurfer]

I was just thinking the other day on making some hinged covers for my panels. I check NOAA's SPC site every day so I have a high chance of getting them covered. Not much light on those days anyway.

SPC Day 1 Outlook

Severe weather, tornado, thunderstorm, fire weather, storm report, tornado watch, severe thunderstorm watch, mesoscale discussion, convective outlook products from the Storm Prediction Center.

www.spc.noaa.gov

 

[OffGridForGood]

Yeah, I have been reading up on the Agravoltaics, lettuce, spinich, onions - many veggies prefer to grow under partial shade. I have a veggie garden and have been pondering if a couple rows of PV set up high enough to clear a person might be a benefit. Still thinking about it, not urgent or anything.

For Hail issue, I asked my insurance co and they couldn't come up with a rate for my set up/area, too little information for the actuaries I guess. So I decided to put aside a $100 per month into a separate account - for upgrades or damage or whatever may come one day. Self-insured I suppose.

 

[G00SE]

I’ve pondered how bifacial panels would do on/over a greenhouse. I don’t know enough about plants/gardening to know if it would help, hurt, or be indifferent

 

[OffGridForGood]

I’ve pondered how bifacial panels would do on/over a greenhouse. I don’t know enough about plants/gardening to know if it would help, hurt, or be indifferent

I had a chance to get some used seal glazing units once time, I wanted them for a greenhouse.
Took one to a commercial landscaping co and they had a test-rig that measured the light and wavelengths that passed the glazed unit - they said it was 'not too bad' for veggies, no good for flowers. ok so I built a greenhouse from those free sealed glazing units. Grows my starters and veggies for about 6-7 years now, all good!
I read that the PV panels are using a similar band of light that plants need, so may not be a great application for a greenhouse, but I guess a test would show the answer!
For the Agravoltaics, the idea is to space the PV rows out more than you would for just Solar, to ensure the plants get some direct sun, just not all day direct sun. A greenhouse may not work well for this, since you can't really space the panels unless you do a row of PV and then a row of plain glass, then another row of PV or similar.

 

[G00SE]

Interesting. Maybe I’ll have to do an e/w roof on the greenhouse so that only half the day is intruded on
Just looking for a place to park more panels. If I only do one side I don’t need to acquire bifacial either I guess.

I saw an article recently about a solar farm in Michigan. I’m not sure if it was posted here or elsewhere. Anyways, the land was considered barren or no longer arable. They placed the panels and seeded native weeds and plants. A couple of years later the bee population had increased by hundreds of percent! I wish I could better quote or find the article.
The unfortunate takeaway is that people may attribute the panels to the success, which may be true idk, but it only happened as a thought experiment for land that couldn’t be farmed on anymore. It could have been turned into a parking lot and done zero benefit to the pollinators.

I’ve never been a greenie but that article was fascinating/eye opening

 

[Quattrohead]

too green for the USA
we use agent orange all over our fields like real men

Holy shit you killed me, funniest thing I have read all year