4000ac solar farm in Texas devastated by hailstorm

Has anyone investigated the consequences of all the sunlight that’s leaked into the environment because of this disaster? What sort of clean up are we looking at and how long will it take?

I feel like this is one of those things that definitely has to have happened before now; after all, grid-scale solar isn't something we've just started doing in the last two or three years, we've been at it for at least 15 that I know of. And hail isn't exactly a new phenomenon in TX. So I wonder why we're hearing about it like it's news. Is this fossil fuel funded bad press? Did they skimp on protection they shouldn't have?

My 200W panel just got slammed camping over xmas and not a spot of damage on it—its made to have some sort of protection from hail strikes. Meanwhile the 4×4 got smashed windows and dents all over.

Placing hardware cloth or similar over the panels with a couple inches of stand-off should prevent most any damage from even lege hail. It will probably reduce sunlight by a few percent across the entire field, but considering the storms Texas gets it would likely be worth it in the long run instead of having most of an entire farm wrecked.

But then Texas isn’t big on protecting their power sources from environmental impacts, are they.

Should have put them underground.

What is "4000ac"?

All the people arguing for nuclear, are you sure Texas is best place to handle that? I'm fine with nuclear as long as they have a reasonable plan to store the waste, but Texas is horrible at managing anything energy related.

Don’t tread on my private infrastructure!!

I think even when damaged they still produce.

More modern vertical arrays might fair better in hurricane-prone areas.

sucks to be the insurance in this case

I wondered if this was the one from years ago, or new.

It is new: https://www.houstonchronicle.com/business/energy/article/large-houston-solar-farm-suffers-extensive-hail-19371591.php

Technology is fragile.

Looked expensive. Looks like garbage now.

Saladbar sneeze guard stonks to the moon!

(Because a hail size sneeze guard would have stopped hail size hail is the joke, you humorless fucks.)

"Solar is the future!"

Green energy is a scam. Nuclear power is our only hope.

Utility scale photovoltaics just seems like a bad idea.

Okay, but if this was a nuclear power plant we'd have a second Fukushima on our hands.