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Guide helps agencies identify and correct existing solar PV vulnerabilities in order to avoid or minimize damage from severe weather.
Federal Energy Management Program
Severe weather events can have a significant impact on the survivability of solar photovoltaic (PV) systems. The Federal Energy Management Program (FEMP) and the General Services Administration (GSA) developed a guide to help agencies identify and correct vulnerabilities of existing PV systems that can result in failures if left unaddressed. 
The PV System Owner’s Guide to Identifying, Assessing, and Addressing Weather Vulnerabilities, Risks, and Impacts report helps users understand the type and severity of severe weather that can occur at any given location, and provides pre- and post-storm operations and maintenance (O&M) measures that can reduce the potential for damage to a PV system during a severe weather event and help speed the recovery of a PV system damaged during a storm. 
There are more than 3,000 solar PV systems installed at federal facilities serving site loads. These systems have proven to be cost-effective, reliable, and safe power sources. In order to ensure a PV system’s optimal performance throughout its service life, system owners must identify and correct latent vulnerabilities that might make a PV system susceptible to weather damage. The guidance represented here has been collected through onsite field audits of existing systems as well as in collaboration with industry experts.
This guide is intended to help federal managers and personnel responsible for PV systems identify and correct commonly known vulnerabilities, with the goals of reducing life-safety risks, improving system performance, and achieving full financial benefits. Each vulnerability and its corresponding description and corrective action is formatted for easy printing (Figure 2). FEMP recommends that users bring the relevant pages of the guide with them during an onsite field audit and use the “Field Audit Instructions” to help identify and confirm the presence of a given vulnerability. 
Key sections in the guide include:
While the guide includes 37 vulnerabilities and 27 corrective actions in detail, some of the most commonly observed are shown in the photos below.
 
Note: While the guide was developed to be as thorough as possible, there is the potential that some vulnerabilities and corrective actions may not be included. Users may discover additional vulnerabilities and corrective actions by following the process outlined in the guide.
The fast-growing solar industry has outpaced the ability for current codes and standards to capture key lessons learned in update cycles. Simply following current codes and standards is not adequate. There are instances where a consulting engineer may be needed to help devise a repair or rebuild project as well as identify existing vulnerabilities of a PV system. Some of these instances include:
All consulting engineers should have the following qualifications:
For more information on hiring a consulting engineer, please see section 3 of the guide.
Download PV System Owner’s Guide to Identifying, Assessing, and Addressing Weather Vulnerabilities, Risks, and Impacts.
 
Learn more about severe weather considerations for new construction systems in FEMP’s Severe Weather Resilience in Solar Photovoltaic System Design webpage.
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