What you need to know about
wind effects on solar panels

Scenario: A guy walks up to a wind engineer and says….

I just got off the phone with a grad student at the local university who was breathless with good news for me – with the new wind deflector he’s just designed for my roof-mounted solar racking system, the wind actually pushes the panels down into the roof! I won’t need any ballast at all!

 

Is that so?

Yes, when the student first observed this result in his computer CFD steady-state simulations, he wasn’t sure it was real. So, with his advisor’s help, he put a full scale prototype of my new 9° tilted rack in the university’s high-speed aerospace wind tunnel and measured the lift and drag forces. They were even able to test at 90 mph, the design wind speed in my target market. “The tests confirm what we saw with the CFD,” the student told me. “The panels were pushed down into the floor of the tunnel.”

 

So now it looks like I’m ready to win jobs and begin installations on commercial roof tops across the country! What more could I need?

 

Well, a PE stamp, for starters. And no knowledgeable PE should stamp a design based on these results.

 

Here’s why…


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Links

Solar Modules on Flat Roofs - Why Worry About Wind? (More Technical)

How to Calculate Wind Loads on Roof Mounted Solar Panels in the US

Wind Effects on Solar Panels Brochure

Renewable Energy Brochure

Renewable Energy Technical Papers