The natural calamities like heavy rains and floods can knock out infrastructures and especially the utilities. They often cause power outages for very long time periods. If you are considering making a switch to solar panels, it is essential to understand how commercial solar energy systems hold up with natural calamities.
Flooding and Solar Panels
Most solar energy systems and residencies are rooftop installations, which is great if you are worried about the potential damage. As long as the water during the flood does not reach the roof of your home, there is nothing to worry since your home wiring would stay intact. These wirings include breaker box and solar inverters that could be at the ground level. In the unfortunate case that your neighbour loses electricity because of the damaged local grid, you would still be able to produce it from the installed rooftop panel.
However, you are likely to face the same fate, if your rooftop becomes damaged or submerged during a hurricane or a tsunami. Even then, your panels will not get damaged beyond repair, because many good quality solar panels can come out safe from any damage. This is due to glass casing and the vacuum-sealed panel between each aluminium frame. However, this does mean that you will be able to use your solar panels after the extreme damage because the wirings of your electric and inverter systems can either get waterlogged or totalled.
Therefore, following any extreme weather conditions, you should get your electrical systems examined. Although, you will find nothing wrong with your solar panels after most of the events unless the serious damage to your home wiring.
Since your general home wiring and electric systems contain very high voltage of electricity, it is incumbent for you to hire a professional installer so you are sure there is no potential damage hanging in your home.
The ground-mounted solar systems and the flooding
The ground-mounted solar systems have a bit of a different story. Because the panels are still water-proof but being on the ground during the flood makes them vulnerable to be ripped from the ground or their racking.
Therefore, if you are currently residing in an area where floods are a common occurrence, it is necessary for you to make sure your system is installed at the highest point of your property. Instead of doing the job yourself, you should work with an installer and make sure the racking-systems and the anchoring are heavy-duty.
Solar installers already consider the flooding damage to the ground-mounted systems, while developing the projects and proposals. There are some companies that would design systems with retention ponds. These retention ponds are composed of sensitive components, such as data collection devices which are mounted with high ground clearance,
Heavy Rain and Solar Panels
Heavy Rain is no match for solar panels, as they are designed to stay safe in the elements for over 25 years. Be it the installed solar panels on your rooftop or ground-mounted ones, the water-proof material over them can make them easily withstand the heaviest rain storms without any damage.
Furthermore, solar panels can still produce power during rainy conditions. Although the sunny weather conditions work best for the efficiency of solar panels, the energy production by a solar panel does not get disrupted because of rain. That is because unlike the visible light the infrared and ultraviolet rays can make their way through the clouds.