The challenge and solution
Traditional site assessment methods left crucial gaps in understanding hail risk, a leading cause of solar asset failure and financial loss. VDE Americas provided Clearway with sophisticated mapping technology that transformed its approach to hail risk assessment. The solution enables staff to quickly assess hail risk at site locations under consideration using a platform already in use by Clearway—namely, web-based ArcGIS map layers hosted by Esri, the world's leading geospatial software provider. Specifically, VDE Americas provides hail risk map layers via an organization-level subscription that combine return interval analysis using radar-based hailstorm forecasting, which predicts the frequency of severe hail events with the resiliency of specific solar panels to hail damage, tracker stow capabilities to defend against hail, and financial impact modeling across the continental United States.