Renewable energy operators from across the country are gathered at a conference in Calgary to discuss the risks climate change-related extreme weather poses to their industry.
Vittoria Bellissimo of the Canadian Renewable Energy Association says all types of power generation, including fossil fuel-fired production, is vulnerable to damage or outages in the event of natural disasters such as wildfire, flooding and severe storms. She says as renewable power makes up a greater proportion of overall electricity generation, operators will need to consider whether their infrastructure is prepared for a changing climate and an increasing number of severe weather events.
In an extreme example of what severe weather can do to renewable energy infrastructure, a 2019 hailstorm that hit a solar farm in Texas damaged 400,000 out of the site's 685,000 panels, resulting in losses estimated at more than US$70 million. Bellissimo says there are many things operators can do to make their infrastructure more resilient, from choosing the right location for renewable generation to investing in technology.