White Paper: Mitigating Extreme Weather Risk
PART 1: Understanding How Differentiated Design and Control Strategies Unlock New Opportunities for Solar Development
By Alex Roedel, Director, Design and Engineering, and Kent Whitfield, VP of Quality, Nextpower
Weather is the root cause of most solar insurance claims in North America. While extreme weather is inevitable and increasingly common, catastrophic solar project losses are not. Project stakeholders can address site- and region-specific risk profiles during project design via strategic product specification and software control strategies.
The first installment of a two-part white paper from Nexpower provides actionable content for insurers, financiers, developers, asset owners and EPCs to assess and mitigate extreme weather risks to utility-scale solar power plants. By using differentiated single-axis tracker design and intelligent control capabilities to mitigate these risks, stakeholders can meet financial expectations and unlock new and varied solar development opportunities. Topics covered in the paper include:
Hail testing and hail-stow tracker controls
Flood-resilient tracker architecture and flood-stow tracker controls
Snow risk mitigation
Sand and soiling mitigation
Plant restoration and remediation