Risk analytics company Renew Risk today launched its U.S. severe convective storm model. The model provides insurers, reinsurers and brokers the ability to understand and price solar risk.
With more projects in the United States being larger, more complex and increasingly located in catastrophe-prone regions, insurers have a unique challenge in assessing risk.
Renew Risk’s new model supports insurers and reinsurers with resilience planning across their renewable portfolios, through an asset-first approach to modelling storm risk to solar farms.
“Historically, risk management has focused on rarer but catastrophic events such as hurricanes and earthquakes,” said Joshua Macabuag, CEO of Renew Risk. “However, high-frequency, highly localized severe convective storms are now the primary loss driver in the U.S., accounting for 51% of natural catastrophe related losses in 2025 – totaling $46 billion.
“For the solar market, traditional models fail to capture how this complex peril interacts with varied engineering systems. Our next-generation U.S. solar model gives our clients the competitive edge to grow their portfolios profitably and with confidence,” Macabuag continued.
The model incorporates:
- Detailed insights into asset value distribution, total insured value and business interruption calculations, powered by Renew Risk’s Industry Exposure Database and updated monthly.
- A machine-learning approach to storm scale modeling, addressing the lack of historical claims data in the remote locations solar farms are typically sited. Developed in partnership with AI-powered firm Vāyuh’s advanced physics-AI modelling engine.
- Integrated modeling of hail, tornadoes and straight-line wind to capture the interconnected dynamics of severe convective storms.
- Asset-level parameters including glass thickness, stow angle and system reliability, enabling a highly granular and customizable view of risk.
“By taking an asset-first approach to model development and partnering with best-in-class organizations, we have developed a technically robust, highly asset-specific view of severe convective storm risk that captures the unique risk drivers of utility scale solar farms,” said David Vicary, head of solar at Renew Risk.
News item from Renew Risk
