![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/hail-resistant-tracker.jpg\"){kind=tracking}
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Given that climate change will cause more extreme weather events, hailstorms are bound to pose a growing challenge to solar farm operators.<\/p>\n
As noted in this 2021 study published in Nature by UNSW\u2019s Timothy Raupach, \u201clow-level moisture and convective instability will increase, raising hailstorm likelihood and enabling the formation of larger hailstones\u201d.<\/p>\n
And hailstorms are already bad news for solar farms. US vendor Powerfactors noted in 2022<\/a> that one storm in May 2019 caused between $US70 million and $US80 million worth of damage to one farm in Texas.<\/p>\n For farms with tracking technology, the best mitigation in a hailstorm is to stow the panels \u2013 angle them as near to vertical as possible to reduce (or even eliminate) hail damage.<\/p>\n Getting that to happen quickly is the next challenge, one that vendor Nextracker says it has beaten. The company launched its solution at last month\u2019s RE+ conference in Las Vegas.<\/p>\n