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The seventh annual Solar Risk Assessment arrives at a pivotal moment for the renewable energy industry. In the past year, we’ve seen solar and wind energy production overtake coal for the first time in the US energy mix, marking a historic milestone in our clean energy transition. We installed nearly 50GW of solar capacity in 2024 alone, shattering records and expectations. As these clean energy sources become increasingly central to our grid reliability, the resilience and performance of solar, wind, and battery assets has never been more critical to our continued success.
The renewable energy sector faces evolving challenges across multiple fronts. Climate impacts have intensified, with hail damage, flooding, and wildfire becoming more frequent and severe. Operational risks persist as PV assets continue to underperform against forecasts. Battery storage safety concerns have heightened following recent incidents, highlighting the need for better thermal management and early detection systems. Fire losses are significantly driven by overgrown vegetation. Risks can be mitigated by strict vegetation management (especially around inverters, transformers, and combiner boxes), proper wire management and coordination with local fire departments. Meanwhile, cybersecurity threats have grown more sophisticated as our industry becomes increasingly reliant on connected monitoring systems.
This year’s report highlights objective industry research on these risks.
Our contributors
Top three takeaways
Hail continues to represent one of the most severe financial risks.
While the emergence of AI technologies presents powerful opportunities for renewables, improperly trained models can give false results.
Cyber threat activity targeting renewable energy infrastructure is growing, necessitating enhanced protection strategies.
Featured articles
Hail Accounts for 73% of Total Losses by Damage Amount, Despite Representing Only 6% of Loss Incidents
By: Reilly Fagan, Jr Data Scientist, kWh Analytics
Solar installations face a range of potential hazards, with hail damage emerging as particularly significant. Recent analysis of the kWh Analytics loss database reveals that hail accounts for 73% of total financial losses despite representing only 6% of loss incidents — an 8% incr ease from previous years. Interestingly, 19% of these hail-related losses occurred in North Carolina, an area not traditionally considered high-risk for hail. This geographic spread indicates that while hail events may be relatively rare, their financial impact is disproportionately severe when they do occur. Fire emerges as the second most costly peril, while attritional losses—small, frequent damages— tend to be the least costly per incident.
The risk of inelastic behavior: Physics-based models may be overestimating the benefit of hail stow by 48% for ~3in hail
By: Nicole Thompson, kWh Analytics; Colin Sillerud, Groundwork Renewables
Testing data from GroundWork Renewables combined with kWh Analytics' hail stow model reveals standard physics-based models used to derive the value of high degree tilt may be overestimating the hail risk reduction by 48% in some cases. Hail stow is a protective measure where solar trackers rotate PV modules to a high-degree tilt angle during hail events to reduce the impact energy of hailstones and minimize damage.
Simple kinetic energy models used to quantify the benefit of stow assume that hail impacts are elastic collisions, where the total kinetic energy of the objects before collision equals the total kinetic energy of the objects post-collision. In reality, real hailstone collisions have an inelastic component associated with them, where kinetic energy is transformed into other forms of energy, such as energy associated with deformation of the module or rotational energy of the hailstone.
PV Sites Around the Country are Underperforming by 8.6% on Average
By: Phoebe Hwang, kWh Analytics
The solar industry has expanded rapidly over the past decade, with an average annual growth of 26%, according to the Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA)¹. Understanding production trends is vital for evaluating photovoltaic (PV) sites' ability to meet generation expectations, as these are imperative to project financing and equity returns. This study analyzes performance data from over 34,000 system-months spanning 2015 to 2023 from kWh Analytics' extensive production database of monthly operating reports (MORs), providing insights into long-term performance trends.
Cybercriminals Targeting Solar’s Rapid Growth: Persistent Threats Demand Action
By: Michael Dockins and Adib Abdulzai, Radian Generation
As solar and storage assets expand their role in the modern energy grid, cybercriminals are taking notice. Check Point Research reported a 70% increase in cyberattacks on U.S. utilities in 2024, enabled by the rapid deployment of highly-connected assets and advanced monitoring systems aimed at improving efficiency and performance. Bottom-line: the continued rise of solar PV, battery storage, and hybrid systems interconnected to transmission and distribution systems has dramatically expanded the grid's threat surface.
“As renewable energy becomes the backbone of the electrical grid, ensuring system resilience is no longer optional—it’s imperative.”
