Global Risk Consultants Corp. and VDE Americas Announce Strategic Partnership to Enhance Catastrophic Hail Risk Assessment for Solar Power Projects
By incorporating VDE Americas' specialized hail risk assessment capabilities into our Natural Hazards risk engineering services, we're providing our solar power clients with even more complete and actionable risk mitigation insights in hail-prone regions.
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'This strategic partnership delivers a powerful solution and a broader service outreach to our clients having solar power among their assets, to help navigate increasingly severe convective storm weather events,' said Greg Bates, President and CEO of GRC. 'By incorporating VDE Americas' specialized hail risk assessment capabilities into our Natural Hazards risk engineering services, we're providing our solar power clients with even more complete and actionable risk mitigation insights in hail-prone regions.'
The enhanced Natural Hazards risk assessment reports will combine GRC's 67 years of global, independent property risk consulting experience with VDE's proprietary hail risk modeling expertise. VDE's methodology integrates radar and ground-based meteorological data with the hail resilience characteristics of specific project equipment to deliver highly detailed, site-specific financial loss estimates.
'Our hail risk technology was purpose-built to address the catastrophic losses we've witnessed in the solar industry,' said Brian Grenko, President and CEO of VDE Americas. 'Partnering with GRC allows us to expand our impact and help more organizations quantify and mitigate hail risk—which now represents over 50% of total insured losses in the solar sector, despite accounting for less than 2% of claims by volume.'
This partnership strengthens a shared commitment to data-driven risk management and risk transfer best practices. The integrated Natural Hazards PML risk reports support better-informed design, procurement, and operational decisions—helping project stakeholders improve resiliency through equipment selection and best practices like 'hail stow' tracker positioning. These risk reduction strategies may also lead to more favorable insurance terms, including potentially greater capacity being offered, and premium reductions.
The announcement comes amid an active 2025 hail season, with elevated risk predictions expected through September.
About Global Risk Consultants Corp.
Global Risk Consultants Corp. (GRC) is the world's leading unbundled property risk engineering solutions provider, servicing Fortune 1,000-sized clients with a 97%+ client retention rate. GRC offers a full portfolio of site-specific property risk identification, assessment and mitigation services including Fire Protection Engineering, Boiler & Machinery Engineering, Natural Hazards Engineering, Infrared Thermography, Property Valuation, and more. For more information, visit: Global Risk Consultants Corp. | TÜV SÜD and LinkedIn page: Global Risk Consultants Corp.: Posts | LinkedIn
About VDE Americas
VDE Americas provides technical advisory and risk mitigation services to equipment manufacturers and those who develop, finance, construct, own, operate, and insure large-scale solar power generation and energy storage facilities. The company's products and services have facilitated the financing of over $15 billion in operating renewable energy assets. VDE Americas is the world's leading expert in solar project hail risk intelligence and loss prevention.
About VDE
VDE, one of the largest technology organizations in Europe, has been regarded as a synonym for innovation and technological progress for more than 130 years. VDE is the only organization in the world that combines science, standardization, testing, certification, and application consulting under one umbrella. The VDE mark has been synonymous with the highest safety standards and consumer protection for more than 100 years.
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