- cross-posted to:
- canada@lemmy.ca
- cross-posted to:
- canada@lemmy.ca
Renewable energy met all new demand for electricity in 2025, according to a new review of global power generation, halting the growth of fossil fuel-powered generation and highlighting the promise of clean sources like wind and solar.
The authoritative Global Electricity Review released annually by Ember, an international energy research organization, says clean sources — especially solar — are growing fast enough and are cheap enough that they are stopping new fossil fuel-powered electricity generation. Electricity from solar and wind increased while there was no change to the amount of electricity produced from burning fossil fuels.
“We’re really talking about a large-scale change in how the energy system works. And solar is among the most scalable technologies that can deliver fast change,” said Nicolas Fulghum, senior data analyst at Ember.
The solar panels on my roof have been there for ten years, through at least five major hailstorms, and still work like new. What a bunch of FUD.
Yea this could be prevented by having adequate glass protection on the panels in areas where the risk of hail is worth that investment.
Its not like traditional power generation fares any better in extreme weather. The renewables were what survived the ice storm outage in Texas while oil and gas plants went down.
A more vertical angle or double sided would also mitigate that risk.
Some places just get freak storms with boulder hail. Rare.
Why bother to provide links when Lemmy just substitutes their own convenient versions of reality?
Ok. Here’s that link you wanted.
“hail stow protocols successfully prevented widespread physical damage at several utility-scale solar farms near Fighting Jays that were also exposed to very severe hail.”
https://www.pv-tech.org/reevaluating-hailstorm-damages-fighting-jays-solar-project/
So one solar farm’s missteps in one freak storm don’t define an entire industry.
It’s a testament to solar’s resiliency that the surrounding farms near the one mentioned in the article didn’t have the same problems because they were designed differently.
Also I will admit that the solar panels on my roof probably would incur damage from a freak hailstorm like the one in your link that dumped tennis ball size hail. In a storm like that, the panels would probably be the least of my concerns.id be lucky to have a roof left on the house. I am grateful however that they have made it through multiple Texas hailstorms without any damage so far.
The bottom link mentions steps that modern farms take to protect their panels to lower insurance costs and to protect them from adverse weather events.
https://www.pv-magazine.com/2024/11/11/hail-prone-texas-solar-project-cuts-insurance-costs-72/