Hail on Earth: How Solar Trackers are Preventing and Mitigating Hail Damage
- Mar 9
- 3 min read
Hail damage creates a disproportionate level of risk to utility-scale solar. Safeguarding PV modules from hail events is critical to financially protecting a site, and solar tracker innovations are increasingly important assets in hail protection.
Why the extra focus on hail? A 2025 Solar Risk Assessment by kWh Analytics showed that while hail makes up only 6% of total loss incidents, it accounts for 73% of financial losses in U.S. photovoltaic solar projects. With extreme weather events on the rise and solar sites expanding into severe weather zones, hail is a real and present danger.
Solar tracker systems can prevent and minimize hail damage if they have advanced stow solutions and intelligent system design – but design and execution are key. If hail identification is insufficient, stow angles are too shallow, or stow systems are unreliable, hail damage can cause lost productivity and exorbitantly expensive repairs.
At GameChange Solar, we’re leading the way with solar tracker innovations and smart stow strategies that mitigate the impact of hail. By incorporating best practices and cutting-edge developments across the five essential areas of PV hail mitigation, our Genius Tracker™ system brings thousands of PV modules to safe positions before hail rains down on a site.
The first step in a robust hail mitigation procedure is to find out when and what kind of hail is coming. While on-site sensors can help assess the size and frequency of hail strikes during an event, they can’t accurately anticipate when hail will appear.
Predictive data with forecasted weather intelligence allows trackers to rotate PV modules to safe stow angles before hail events begin. A two-layer defense to guard against different types of hail (large, slowly approaching hail and smaller, fast-moving hail) provides additional safety protection.
With hail accurately predicted and identified, the next step is to stow the modules at a protective angle. Trackers that turn modules to a steep stow angle reduce the likelihood that modules will be struck by hail in the first place, and minimize the damage if modules do get hit. For example, tracker systems that rotate modules to a 60-degree angle will have only half as many modules hit as a system at a flat position.
Hail and wind typically go hand in hand. This means that hail almost always falls at a slanted angle, making directionality a crucial factor in hail mitigation. Tracker systems that can determine hail direction and stow the modules away from it reduce the risk of hail damage.
There are two methods for anticipating the direction of hail: event-specific measurements and historical trend analysis. Recent studies from wind experts like CPP show that event-specific measurements tend to be less accurate, so a sound hail mitigation plan uses historical data analysis from previous local storms to determine directionality and maximize protection.
Since it’s so common for wind and hail to occur together, wind stow and hail stow procedures need to be designed for compatibility. Without this compatibility, wind damage can result when modules are stowed for hail protection (and vice versa).
The steep stow angle needed for hail protection results in high wind-loading on the modules and tracker, so the tracker also needs to be designed to withstand significant winds when stowed at a steep angle.
Hail mitigation is only as good as a tracker system’s ability to reliably execute. If the system misses hail alerts, cannot move to stow, or doesn’t operate as intended, then even the best design work will leave modules exposed to damage.
A reliable tracker system will perform as expected, have a robust communications system, and rotate modules to stow without incident. When it’s operationally reliable, it will have a user-friendly design, efficient alerts, and a smooth interface.
Our Genius Tracker™ system is built for exceptional reliability and designed to optimize all five factors in PV hail mitigation. In conjunction with VDE Americas, we’ve deployed advanced tools to determine the optimal design for specific projects, balancing hail risk and overall cost. The combination of our safe and reliable Genius Tracker™ system and VDE America’s advanced hail risk assessments provides effective, bankable solutions that increase hail protection, minimize system costs, and optimize long-term project ROI.
For a deeper dive into hail mitigation and PV protection for your project, download the whitepaper below.