Renew Risk completes hail risk model for solar farms in high-risk US States
David Vicary
Solar Lead
Renew Risk
4 February 2026 – Renew Risk, the specialist renewable energy risk modelling and analytics firm, has successfully completed its Solar Model for several of the United States’ highest risk States for hail, including Texas, Oklahoma and Kansas. The achievement represents a successful milestone in Renew Risk’s journey towards launching its full US Solar Model, scheduled for completion in Q2 2026.
Hailstorms represent one of the most significant and costly natural catastrophe risks to utility-scale solar farms across the United States, responsible for 73% of financial losses, according to figures from kWh Analytics. At particular risk are solar farms located in Hail Alley, a corridor spanning the Great Plains through central US that experiences the highest frequency of severe hail.
Notable losses in Hail Alley in recent years include the 2019 severe hailstorm in Pecos County Texas, which caused an estimated $70m in losses to the 178 MW Midway Solar project. Another hailstorm in 2024 struck the 350 MW Fighting Jays Solar Farm in Fort Bend County, Texas, and resulted in losses hitting the $50m sublimit. The States now modelled by Renew Risk – all located within Hail Alley – represent more than 49 GW of solar capacity.
Renew Risk’s US Solar Model provides a detailed assessment of solar farm risk tailored specifically for hail’s defining characteristics absent in other models; high frequency, low severity and with hyper-localised footprints. Other USPs of Renew Risk’s model include:
Built from the ground up: to incorporate a multitude of interrelated factors that influence the extent of damage caused by a hailstorm, including hailstone size, impact energy and angle, wind speed and event duration.
Resolution where it matters most: to focus on exactly where solar farms are located, delivering sharper insights where they’re needed without causing lengthy run times or high computational costs.
Built specifically for solar assets: to offer an unparalleled level of granularity, capturing solar-specific characteristics such as panel stowage and corresponding angles, glass thickness and materials, as well as associated infrastructure including cables, transformers and other critical components.
Incorporating business interruption: beyond physical damage, the model explicitly accounts for loss of revenue resulting from extreme events, with detailed calculations to reflect seasonality and wholesale energy costs.
“As utility-scale solar adoption accelerates across the US to meet clean energy demands, the complexity and concentration of asset values are reaching unprecedented levels. Our model addresses a critical gap in analysing these specialised risks, particularly in regions most vulnerable to severe storms. By leveraging the asset first Renew Risk approach, stakeholders can drive more informed underwriting and portfolio management decisions as material loss potential continues to rise.”
The launch of Renew Risk’s Solar Model for high-risk States reinforces the firm’s focus on delivering specialist, independent risk analytics for renewable energy infrastructure at pace; supporting the energy transition through informed risk management.
The news follows Renew Risk’s previous announcement of its partnership with AI-powered catastrophe modelling firm Vāyuh to create synthetic hail events across the exact locations where utility-scale solar farms are constructed, filling the gaps left by observation bias.
“By combining a high-resolution machine learning hazard model, a detailed industry exposure database, and state-of-the-art vulnerability science, our US Solar Model can generate results at multiple levels of detail – from portfolio-level assessments to in-depth single-site analyses – enabling truly solar-specific risk quantification.”
The full US-wide Solar Model is currently undergoing extensive industry testing to optimise functionality and performance, and is on track for a Q2 launch.
Interested in learning more about our US Solar Model? Download our overview PDF.
About Renew Risk
Renew Risk provides the enhanced insights needed for insurers, energy developers and financiers to make informed decisions about renewable energy assets. Driven by client needs, Renew Risk combines a science-first approach with a passion for energy resilience to provide an unparalleled portfolio of catastrophe models and risk insights focussed solely on renewable energy infrastructure. Together, we can power the energy transition.