Do Solar Panels Work in the Rainy Season and Survive Typhoons?

Two questions come up in every consultation between June and November. Will it still work when it rains all week, and will it still be there after the next typhoon. Both deserve straight answers.

Rain doesn't stop generation

Panels run on daylight, not direct sun. An overcast day still produces, just less. Depending on how heavy the cloud is you might see anywhere from a fifth to a half of a clear-day figure, and a genuinely black storm afternoon can drop near nothing for a couple of hours.

The thing to understand is that this is already priced into a decent estimate. When we size a system on 4 kWh per installed kW per day, that's a yearly average with the wet months already dragging it down. April and May run well above it. August runs below. The number you're quoted should already be the blend.

Rain also washes the panels, which is worth something. Arrays in Bolinao pick up salt spray, and a proper downpour cleans them better than most owners ever would.

What a wet month actually looks like

Expect your worst months to land somewhere around 60 to 75% of your best months. If your system makes 600 kWh in April, don't be alarmed by 400 in August. That's the system working normally, not a fault. If you're on net metering, banked credits from the dry season help smooth this out.

If a proposal shows you flat monthly savings across all twelve months, it's a simplification. Real output has a shape, and it dips through habagat.

Typhoons: the honest version

Panels themselves are tougher than people expect. Tempered glass, tested against hail, sealed against water. Panels are very rarely the failure point.

The mounting is what matters. Almost every array that's lost in a storm was lost at the fixings, not the glass. That means:

• Rails and clamps rated for the wind loads your area actually sees, not generic hardware
• Fixings into structure, into purlins or rafters, not just through roofing sheet
• Stainless or properly coated hardware, because coastal air eats cheap steel
• Correct edge and corner setbacks, since uplift is worst at roof edges
• Cable management that won't flog itself to pieces in high wind

Ask any installer what wind speed the mounting system is rated for, and how it's fixed to the structure. A vague answer tells you a lot.

The roof underneath

An array is only as secure as what it's bolted to. If the roof sheets are already loose or the purlins are rusted, adding panels adds load and leverage to a structure that was marginal to begin with. This is why a real site assessment matters, and why we'd sometimes rather you fixed the roof first.

After a storm

Once it's safe, from the ground: look for lifted or shifted panels, hanging cables, anything obviously bent. Check your monitoring for output that's dropped off or gone. Don't climb up on a wet roof to investigate, and don't touch damaged wiring. DC from an array is live whenever there's daylight, storm or not.

If something looks wrong, shut the system down at the isolator and call us before anything else.

Insurance

Worth a phone call to your provider. Some home policies treat a roof-mounted array as part of the structure, some want it declared separately, some exclude it. Better to find out now than during a claim.

If you're sizing a system and want the seasonal shape modelled rather than averaged, that's part of what our sizing process covers.

Worth checking before the next storm season

If you already have an array, the mounting is the thing to look at, and the time to look is now rather than in the middle of a signal number three.

If you're considering solar and want it built to hold, get in touch and ask us about the mounting system and how it's fixed to your roof. It's a fair question and we like being asked it. Message us, call, or visit the shop in Concordia, Bolinao.