Hurricane "Florence" hovered in the Atlantic for a few days and then landed on 19th Sep.in the Wrightsville Beach, North Carolina, USA, where 1.7 million of the state's 3.4 million residents suffered power outages. During the storm, the most vulnerable parts are the power wire systems and the electrical equipment,which are damaged by the falling trees, downed power poles or flooding.
Duke and Xstrata Solar, the two largest solar PV power plants and operators in North Carolina, said that the PV system were barely damaged after their initial verification. Both companies have shut down some systems before the storm, due to the expected coming flood. Duke said that about 1,000 megawatts of 3,500 megawatts of solar energy were off-line due to temporary downtime or damage to the grid or other external reasons, only 12 panels in a 60 megawatt solar farm were damaged, less than 1% of the solar panels.
Most PV modules and racks are designed to withstand wind pressures of up to 140 mph. Some photovoltaic systems have a tracking photovoltaic mount that can be remotely controlled to move the panel to a position where the wind will cause the minimal damage.
