About this virtual "lunch and learn"
Who is presenting?
Jon Previtali is the vice president and senior principal engineer at VDE Americas overseeing the company's hail risk intelligence. He is a 20-plus-year veteran of the solar power industry who has worked in project development, operations, asset management, finance, and engineering.
Jonathan Ostrom Allen has over 30 years of experience in data analytics and scientific research related to the electric utility industry. As a principal engineer for VDE Americas, he helps customers mitigate technical risks and contributes to the development and advancement of natural catastrophe modeling capabilities.
Scott Van Pelt is the chief engineer for GameChange Solar, a global racking manufacturer. Licensed as a professional engineer in 20 states, he is an expert in structural engineering who has served as a member of several national and international standards committees.
Why is this important?
As more solar projects are built in hail prone regions, it is critical to implement risk mitigation solutions proven to reduce solar panel damage due to both hail and wind. This webinar is relevant to stakeholders across the solar industry, including developers, owners, operators, equipment manufacturers, financiers, and insurers.
In this tech talk, technical experts from VDE Americas and GameChange Solar will discuss key findings from a first-of-its-kind hail stow verification study. Specifically, VDE reviewed operational and meteorological data for a study site in Arkansas exposed to six severe convective storm fronts over a three-day period, each of which met the criteria to trigger defensive hail stow. In all cases, the tracker system successfully went to the desired steep stow angle, tilting the solar panels to deflect direct hail impact. Because hail risk never exists in a vacuum, the presenters will also discuss how to use site-specific historical wind speed and direction characteristics to account for coincident hail-with-wind risk.
What will you learn about?
- What is involved in a tracker hail stow validation study
- How radar observations inform maximum size of hail estimates
- Using site-specific early weather alerts to trigger hail stow
- Evidence-based validation of automated hail defenses
- Best practices for successful catastrophic risk mitigation
