Crazy that people were concerned about "chemicals leaking" -- do they think the panels are full of goo?
Golf-ball sized hail is relatively uncommon, but general hail in Texas is probably more common than you think. We had 33 hail storms near me last year, with 4 golf ball sized reports. One was "hen egg sized", which is a terrifying thought.
It happens often enough that Texas solar farms will need to have an answer for the capex to work out. Either with tougher panels, or maybe some kind of retracting shield.
> Crazy that people were concerned about "chemicals leaking" -- do they think the panels are full of goo?
They probably don't know; I honestly don't either. If I were taking a wild guess, I'd think like 90% glass, 9% silicon, 1% some kind of probably-carcinogenic metal.
P.S. you get the weirdest Uber drivers in Dallas, or at least I have. These have included a Bitcoin bro who showed me his Alcor cryonics bracelet (instructing them on how to freeze him if he dies) and someone talking about the Illuminati and their influence over hip hop music. Both got five stars and a good tip. I pay extra for that stuff.
I'd roll my eyes at the idea of "chemical leaking" (while at the same time not exactly wanting to grind one up and sprinkle it on pizza). It's absolutely the case that places in the middle of the country that get thunderstorms and tornadoes also sometimes get ginormous hailstones, the kind that can literally kill you if you're caught outside unprotected.
Baseball sized hail falls every 3 years.
Source: I am a native Texan.
My car will weather a hail storm of rice grain size no problem, but golf balls? Good luck.
> Select a tracker system that can engage in a "hail stow" mode. This stow position is typically the maximum vertical tilt the tracker system allows, which should decrease the angle of impact of most hail balls. It’s better if this automatically engages, but some systems are manually operated. Without implementing special design considerations as discussed in (Reznikov 2018), tracker systems may not fare as well in high wind regions, so certain locations may need to balance these conflicting design considerations.
https://www.energy.gov/femp/hail-damage-mitigation-solar-pho...
