Balancing the books on big solar’s weather risk

We need renewable energy to combat climate change, yet our changing climate is already impacting the viability of renewable energy projects, particularly utility-scale solar. Hail storms, flooding, severe winds – the escalation of extreme weather is already causing an insurability crisis in Australia, pushing up premiums and seeing insurers limit coverage, and conditions are only set to worsen.

At the same time, solar farms are becoming bigger and increasingly aggregated in Renewable Energy Zones. While this approach helps with logistics, clustering assets also means clustering risk. Plus, all of this is unfolding on the backdrop of slimmer margins as daytime wholesale energy prices plunge and competition grows more fierce.

This is to say, the question of how to future-proof utility-scale solar is an urgent one. How do we more fairly balance risk allocation across stakeholders? What technological and operational choices can be made to mitigate extreme weather risks? And, given what’s at stake, how do we start to think bigger and more collaboratively?

Leaders from across the stakeholder chain, including insurers, lenders, project developers, contractors, and technology suppliers will come together to discuss these questions during this panel.

pv magazine Webinar content:

• Utility-scale solar’s insurability crisis
• How the industry can mitigate against weather risk using technology
• Balancing risks between stakeholders
• Getting comfortable with risk and opening early discussions
• Q&A

Attendees will have the opportunity to put their questions to the speakers following the panel discussion. Bella Peacock, editor at pv magazine Australia moderate the webinar.

Registration for this pv magazine Webinar is free of charge.