Are Fossil Fuel Projects More or Less Insurable Than Renewables?

This week we chatted with Jason Kaminsky, CEO of renewables insurance data firm kWh Analytics. Kaminsky has been laser focused on the real risks of physical damage solar and battery projects face – and the fears host communities feel about them. We talked about how those risks compare to fossil fuels and whether innovation could cure this industry ailment.

The following is an edited version of our conversation.

Are fossil fuel projects more or less insurable than the renewable projects you cover?

On the whole, renewables are more exposed to natural catastrophe risk. You’re putting glass out onto a field that has hail or fire or what have you, and you see more exposure to natural events than you would [even] a spinning turbine that's surrounded by steel. When we were getting to insuring property, the first risk that came onto our radar screen was hail risk. The industry had shifted development into Texas for a variety of reasons and the insurance companies at that point in time were not recalibrating their models for the fact there’s actually quite significant hail in Texas. And we were seeing significant losses.

It’s not uncommon to have multiple $50 million loss events in any given year for solar projects due to hail, typically in Texas, Oklahoma. That’s the zone of hail. And we don’t see that with a gas facility particularly because, well, it’s in a building.

But it’s way more distributed than a single fossil fuel facility, so even if you have a $50 million loss, that does not have an impact on the ability of the grid to generate.

The part of the facility that is not damaged will continue to produce power and put power onto the grid. You get many more partial loss events versus a gas facility where the turbine goes and you basically have a total loss. Your ability to distribute your risk is much greater with renewables, which is a very strong pro from an insurance underwriting perspective.

Are new technologies helping with renewables’ insurability?

In the last few years, there’s been a lot of innovation. At RE+ you walk among the floor of battery providers and they all have very impressive fire management capabilities, and it’s at the forefront of how they market their technology. You also see that with solar modules some have said, we’re hail resistant. The way they’re putting sensors onto cells, the way they’re running controls on cooling devices, the way thermal management systems and battery management systems have abilities to vent for heat… they’ve made a lot of improvements.

But it’s interesting – I was at an asset management conference in March and I’d been going to that conference for 10 years, and it was the first time I’d heard at that conference about the social license to operate. They’re seeing these quasi-local thought leader groups that all seem to be using the same talking points that oppose large scale solar in their communities, and they push local regulatory rules to reduce the ability to develop solar in their backyards. It was encouraging to see a discussion around it and an acknowledgement that as an industry we need to go into these communities and spend time talking to the local communities.

Fascinating. Do you think discussions like these are enough to mean progress in dealing with project opposition?

It’s not historically been in the DNA of our industry to do that. I’d say today the opposition is much more organized than many renewable energy developers today so it’s been this interesting phenomenon. The local opposition says we don’t want this industrial solar. It’s proven to be effective at killing some of these utility scale deals.

We still have a long way to go in educating communities and getting them comfortable with the land stewardship that happens at these facilities. The solar industry manages a ton of land. It’s not my core focus but I’ve been exposed to those challenges around the community engagement piece and I think most developers are still building the muscle in how to do that effectively.