VDE Americas, a subsidiary of the European technology organization VDE Group, has launched a hail risk atlas over the United States.
The Atlas, designed to predict the economic risk of solar assets as a result of hail loss, is the last in VDE’s series of hail risk -intelligence products for solar developers, insurance and investors. It is available for use on the Esri ArcGIS platform.
The Atlas used Upgrade test data and forensic states on the spot to model the Hagelweerkracht of solar modules and the effect of the tilting corners mounting system. It also uses computer modeling in combination with land-based radar and observation data to produce a series of hail risk cards and intelligence for assessing the risk of loss caused by Hagel.
The program also has return intervals cards that predict the probability of hail showers about a range of maximum hailstone sizes and probably maximum loss and average annual loss estimates, which can be used to assess the hail risk for both new and operational solar projects.
VDE Americas says that serious hail events have caused hundreds of millions of dollars damage to the American solar infrastructure, with the majority of sun plants on utility scale in the states in risky areas.
John Sedgwick, president of VDE Americas, said that when it is spoken with high-quality solar assets, it is clear that the hail risk for infrastructure is often unknown.
“The solar energy -infrastructure of North America is dramatically endorsed for catastrophic events such as Hagel,” Sedgwick added. “We believe that this level of mapping again, a huge step forward in how we can adapt and reduce extreme weather losses and the energy industry gives a new tool in its asset protection arsenal.”
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