[RE-wrenches] Hailstorm damage

[Benn Kilburn]

Allan, great of you to share this, thank you. I am asked about potential hail damage on at least 85% of the site assessments I do, so reciting the "industry standard hailstone test" is pretty common. 
To date, I am only aware of one system that suffered damaged modules from hail here in Alberta.  Similarly to what you described, the modules were mounted almost completely flat and in that case the hail was reported to be at least golf ball size as well. 

Benn Kilburn
SkyFire Energy Inc. 
780-906-7807


> On Oct 8, 2015, at 11:47 PM, Allan Sindelar <allan at sindelarsolar.com> wrote:
> 
> Wrenches,
> From time to time I see posts about hail damage. The message below was sent internally among Positive Energy's three offices, and I thought worth sharing here. 
> Allan, Sindelar Solar
> 
> -------- Forwarded Message --------
> Subject:	Big hailstorm in LC
> Date:	Tue, 6 Oct 2015 08:04:14 -0600
> Hi all,
> We had a big hail storm in Las Cruces on Saturday.  Because so many potential clients ask about how solar panels hold up to hail, I thought that I would share a bit of what we found.
> 
> The hail that was falling was about golf ball sized.  I have seen a picture of a hailstone next to a tape measure that was about an inch and a half in diameter.  On the install that we started yesterday, all of the customer's skylights (about 6) were busted out; not just cracked, but with big holes punched through them.  Several of our clients called to tell us that their skylights were destroyed, but their solar panels were undamaged.  We went up onto roofs for four of our clients that are out of town and found no damage to the PV arrays.
> 
> We have only one report of a damaged panel, which you can see in the attached photos.  This was a unique installation, because the modules are mounted flat on a nominally flat roof, so they have about two degrees of pitch.  That means that the hailstones hit almost perpendicular, so with more force.  Even at this installation, only one 1 out of 15 modules was damaged.  This is a Suntech module.
> 
> All in all, our modules fared well.  To my knowledge, this is only the second time that a module installed by Positive Energy has been damaged by hail.  The first time was in Taos a few years ago.
> Cheers,
> Westbrock
> 
> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> Date: Mon, Oct 5, 2015 at 7:19 PM
> Subject: Broken Panel
> 
> Here is what the panel looks like! It is just like safety glass, the entire panel is shattered.
> Bob
> <IMG_0258.JPG>
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