I have a difficult question. A potential client lives adjacent to a golf course and is subject to occasional errant shots. The north facing roof is in direct line of sight of the tee box, but the southern exposure where panels would be mounted could potentially receive some sort of glancing impact or maybe a ricochet. Is there any way of safeguarding panels?
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Solar panels are rated for hail impact which is roughly the impact of a 1" hail ball striking the panel at 52 mph. The tempered glass protects the solar cells under this type of impact. This video is poorly done, but you can see impact of hail on the roof and you can see that the panels are not effected which is amazing. I know this doesn't directly answer your golf ball question, but I hope it helps.
Also in Yahoo Answers I found this from a guy who had a small system installed at his house that got hit in hail storm.
“I have 8 solar modules in my back yard and they went through a hail storm that did over $10,000 damage to my home and almost $8,000 to my truck. These modules have a 4 pound hail impact rating. I did have one small cheapie module that that was not hail rated and broke which the Ins. paid me $900.00 for.”
If the roof is really in the impact zone of golf balls another idea is that you can use a thinfilm laminate solar panel like the UniSolar panel. http://www.uni-solar.com/ The efficiency is much lower than a traditional silicon PV panel but given the application it might be a good solution if you are in the "firing range".
mg: Using Unisolar modules is a very bad idea. First, they have the same hail tolerance as other IEC certified modules - after all, all certified modules have to pass the same IEC 61215/61646 hail tests. Second, they are horribly overpriced for the 6.3-6.7% efficiency they provide. Third, they degrade severely in performance with the years. Fourth, they de-glue. Fifth, they underperform due to overheating and suboptimal tilt. Finally, a few of those ignited on the rooftop of the Long Beach Convention Center in February of 2008. Buyer beware!
We live in the first house on the first tee of the Desert Willows Golf Course in Henderson, NV. We would love to get solar panels, however, our house get clobbered by golf balls. In the past few years we have had to replace windows, a skylight cover, a French door in our inner courtyard and have had to patch our house more times than I can count. We get approximately 8-10 golf balls in our yard every week, many having hit the house first. Is there anything that you know of that will protect solar panels? The hail test is not valid since the golf balls come at a faster rate than hailstones.
Thanks,
Lorie
Thank you for the question. We're not aware of protection other than putting up a net similar to that of a driving range and that at the wrong spot could cause unwanted shading of the system. Sorry not a great answer, but I’m not sure there is one.