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Old 12-30-2018, 09:56 AM   #1
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Solar panels and hail

We keep our RV in covered storage so hail is not a big problem for us, but we have been camping when it has hailed and we had a nasty hail storm hit us a couple of weeks ago when the RV could have been at our house in preparation for a trip. That hail storm had large hail which tore holes in the cover on our backyard pool so we began to wonder what damage hail might do to solar panels.

Our Fuse has 2 flexible solar panels on the roof. Would those be damaged by hail? We are planning to add a 3rd panel and that could be another flexible panel or it could be a rigid one. Are the rigid panels more or less susceptible to hail?
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Old 12-30-2018, 01:08 PM   #2
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I'm not knowledgeable in this, but I've always assumed - yeah, that's a problem - that if the solar panels were damaged it would be noticeable by simply looking at them. Kind of like shattered glass.
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Old 01-02-2019, 06:53 AM   #3
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The glass on my large residential solar panels is pretty sturdy so I'm sure they will withstand some amount of hail. But baseball to softball size????? Don't know.

No idea about the flexible panels
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Old 01-03-2019, 12:36 AM   #4
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Hi!
Hailstones up to a diameter of an inch with a speed of 50mph should not be a problem. This is a part of the testing parameters that every solar panel product has to pass (IEC 61215 standard). Regarding the speed and diameters of most hail storms & stones so we can say that 95% of the hailstorms don't damage the solar panels (you probably get more damage on your RV than on the solar panels). Nevertheless: Huge storms with hailsstones with a diameter of a fist damage everything.
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Old 01-06-2019, 05:47 PM   #5
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Fortunately, when we have hail (very seldom) it is about pea sized! I have never had hail damage to vehicles, house, RV or solar panels! I hope this trend continues when I move my home base to Kentucky!
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Old 01-07-2019, 05:24 AM   #6
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I live in the Phoenix area of southern Arizona and you would not think that we would have a hail problem in this area but a couple of months ago we had a hail storm with hail about the size of ping pong balls and it hit with enough force to tear holes in our pool cover. That was the reason for the posting.

Hail is pretty uncommon here, as you might expect, but we have seen it a couple of times in the last 10 years. We generally keep our RV in covered storage so that is not the problem. I was just wondering if the solar panels on our RV were likely to be damaged by hail if we ran into it in the future.
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Old 01-08-2019, 04:03 AM   #7
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We have had solar for 20 years and store our rigs outdoors, most of that time in VA. Never a problem, never heard of a solar panel being damaged by hail.



I don;t think the electric companies would put up thee mssive solar farms if there was a legitimate concern of hail damage.
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