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362

4000ac solar farm in Texas devastated by hailstorm (imgur.com)

submitted 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

181 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Looks expensive. The grey ones are the broken ones.

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[–] [email protected] 82 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (4 children)

Placing hardware cloth or similar over the panels with a couple inches of stand-off should prevent most any damage from even lege hail. It will probably reduce sunlight by a few percent across the entire field, but considering the storms Texas gets it would likely be worth it in the long run instead of having most of an entire farm wrecked.

But then Texas isn’t big on protecting their power sources from environmental impacts, are they.

[–] [email protected] 18 points 7 months ago

Nah, how else will Republicans cry that solar energy is bad, and that we need coal and oil?

[–] [email protected] 16 points 7 months ago (3 children)

How strong that cloth and attachment would need to be to survive gusts from a storm that's capable of generating such big hail?

[–] [email protected] 27 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

Hardware cloth is metal mesh, so any wind strong enough to remove it would have long since destroyed the panel it was attached to thanks to the surface area of the panel. The standoffs would probably need to be “L” tabs or similar arranged in a grid across the face of the panel. Heck, just erecting a screen over the entire field would probably be better and cheaper than doing individual panels, but a field-size cover would probably end up with needing higher strength posts to mount it because of the greater drag over surface area. That said, I’m not an engineer, so the most efficient and effective method of protection is going to have to come from someone with more knowledge than my guesswork.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Yeah, might want a metal grating/mesh or something instead. Should do better in the wind.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Hardware cloth is a metal mesh.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 7 months ago

Ah okay, I wasn't familiar with the terminology.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 7 months ago

the likelihood that you get hail that is capable of damaging pretty robust fabric is incredibly unlikely, and will start damaging other things. So you really only need to protect against the most common types of hail.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Why are we so dumb? Just put a large rolling cover over solar fields. Truck beds have this “technology”.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 7 months ago

Keeping political power matters. Actual function, like electrical power, does not. They would rather rule an empire of dirt than be an ensign in starfleet.