Do Solar Panels Work During Storms? The 2026 UK Guide

Yes. Solar panels keep generating electricity during storms – just at lower output because of the heavy cloud. The more useful question is whether the panels survive the storm itself, and the answer is that they almost always do because they’re tested to handle far worse than UK weather typically delivers.

If you watched Storm Éowyn batter the country in January 2025 with 100mph gusts and wondered whether your panels are going to make it through the next one, you’re asking the right question and the data is mostly reassuring. UK panels are tested to international standards designed for hurricanes and severe hail, mounted with hardware engineered for sustained wind loading, and protected by warranties and insurance that cover the genuine edge cases. They keep generating during the storm itself, occasionally take a hit afterwards, and almost always come out the other side intact. The interesting risks aren’t the ones you might assume.

01 // What actually happens to a panel during a storm

During a storm, three things are happening to your panels at once and worth distinguishing between. Understanding them separately helps make sense of why the system both keeps working and stays attached even in conditions that are taking down trees and lifting tiles around it.

Light still reaches the panels, just less of it. A storm sky is dense overcast with rain, which scatters and absorbs incoming light dramatically. The panels see typical irradiance of 100-300 W/m² versus a clear-sky peak of 1,000 W/m². Output drops to roughly 10-30% of rated capacity. That’s lower than a normal cloudy day but still meaningful generation, and the inverter stays awake and feeding power to your home through the storm.

Wind exerts pressure on the panel surface. Pressure from below (uplift, when wind hits the underside of the array and tries to peel it off the roof) is the main concern, and the engineering of both panels and mounting hardware is designed around it. Standard UK fittings survive sustained winds well above what UK storms produce. The panels themselves rarely break from wind alone; failures, when they happen, are nearly always at the mounting interface or where flashing meets the surrounding roof.

Debris hits the panel surface. Less common but more dramatic: flying objects (tiles from neighbouring roofs, branches, garden furniture in extreme cases) striking the panel face. Modern panels with 3.2mm tempered glass survive most realistic UK debris strikes, but a sharp impact at the wrong angle can crack glass. This is what most insurance claims for storm damage actually involve, not wind alone.

02 // UK storm reality: what we actually get

Worth getting concrete about what UK storms actually deliver, because the overlap between “what panels can handle” and “what we typically experience” is large in panels’ favour. The 2024-25 storm season ran from September 2024 to August 2025 and produced 6 named storms, which is fairly typical (the previous year had 12, the most since the naming scheme launched in 2015).

Storm Éowyn was the standout of the season and one of the most powerful UK storms in over a decade, with 100mph gusts at Drumalbin in Lanarkshire and more than a million homes losing power. Insurance industry estimates put combined storm damage from the season at around £300 million, in line with the long-run UK average. Solar-specific damage was a small fraction of this, with most claims relating to surrounding roof damage rather than the panels themselves. UK named storm data is published openly via the Met Office UK Storm Centre.

For context: the Met Office storm-naming threshold requires amber or red warnings, and most insurance policies define a storm as gusts of 55mph+ (Beaufort Force 10) or torrential rain at 25mm+/hour. Even the worst gusts in the 2024-25 season were comfortably below the wind loads that IEC 61215 baseline panels are tested to survive.

03 // The standards: what panels are actually built for

The IEC 61215 international standard sets the minimum bar for solar panels sold into the European market, and it’s a more demanding bar than most people realise. The relevant tests for storm performance are the static mechanical load (snow and steady wind), the dynamic mechanical load (repeated wind push-pull), and the hail impact test (debris analogue).

The hail test is similarly tough. IEC 61215 fires 25mm ice balls at the panel surface at 23 m/s (about 52mph) at 11 specific impact points, and the panel must show no cracking or power loss. UK hailstones in storm conditions rarely exceed this size, and even the rare severe events stay within the envelope of what panels are designed to handle.

That 0.1% claim rate is for hail in the United States, which sees larger and more frequent hailstones than the UK. The genuine UK storm risk to panels is therefore lower still, and the figure aligns with what UK installers actually see in service: the failure rate from storm damage runs consistently well below 1%, and most of those events are debris strikes rather than panel structural failure. The full NREL field studies on PV reliability are publicly published and tracked over time. For more on the related question, our guide on whether panels handle hail goes into more detail on impact ratings.

04 // The risks that actually matter

For UK readers, the actually-likely storm scenarios that affect solar panels are not the ones the question implies. Direct wind damage to a properly mounted, IEC 61215-compliant panel is genuinely rare. The realistic risk profile looks like this.

Note that the most likely event is damage to the surrounding roof, not the panels themselves. A poor install where edge flashing wasn’t fitted properly, or where tiles around the array weren’t bedded back in correctly after the hooks were fitted, can be lifted by wind tunnelling under the panel edge during a storm. The panels stay put; the tiles around them don’t. This is the single biggest reason install quality matters more than panel specification for storm resilience. Our breakdown of whether solar panels cause roof leaks covers the install-quality factors in detail.

Indirect lightning is the second realistic risk. A nearby strike can induce a voltage surge that travels along the wiring to your inverter and electronics, causing damage even though the panels themselves were never hit. This is why surge protection devices (SPDs) are required on the DC side under BS 7671 wiring regulations. Most modern UK installs include them as standard. Our lightning guide covers this in more depth.

05 // Insurance and what’s actually covered

The financial protection picture for storm damage is straightforward, and it matters that you understand it because the most common mistake is trying to claim through the wrong channel. There are three relevant cover types, and only one of them is the right route.

• Buildings insurance: yes. Standard UK home buildings insurance covers storm damage to solar panels and the surrounding roof, almost always. Most policies define a storm as 55mph+ gusts, 25mm+/hour rain, or hail of damaging size. Confirm panels are listed in your policy schedule and the rebuild value reflects them.
• Manufacturer panel warranty: usually no. Storm damage is typically excluded as force majeure or “act of God”. The warranty covers manufacturing defects and performance degradation, not weather events.
• Installer workmanship warranty: only if install quality caused the failure. If the storm ripped tiles off because the original install didn’t bed them back properly, the workmanship warranty may apply. If the storm broke a panel through impact, it doesn’t.

If you want to check what your specific policy covers, the policy schedule is the document to look at. “Solar panels”, “renewable energy equipment”, or “fixtures and fittings” should appear somewhere in the cover schedule. A few older policies (pre-2015) may have explicit exclusions for “alternative energy installations” – if yours does, a five-minute phone call to your insurer will usually resolve it. Our solar panel insurance claims guide covers the documentation and process in detail.

06 // Practical preparation: what’s worth doing

For most UK homeowners, the answer is “almost nothing – your panels are already prepared for this.” The hardware is rated for it, the install was designed for it, the insurance covers it. There are a few low-effort, high-leverage things worth doing if you want to be especially prudent, especially before the storm season starts in autumn.

• Confirm your buildings insurance lists solar panels. Five-minute phone call. Make sure the rebuild value reflects the system cost.
• File the original install paperwork somewhere findable. MCS certificate, roof condition report, hardware specs. These matter for any later claim.
• Take a baseline photograph of the array from the ground. Before any storm season. Helps later if you need to demonstrate post-storm changes.
• Walk around the house after major storms. Look at the panels from the ground, not from the roof. Check for visible cracks, displacement, or damaged tiles around the edges.
• Watch the inverter for unexpected output drops in the days following a major storm. Microcrack damage from impacts can be invisible but show up in generation data.
• Don’t climb on the roof in or after a storm. Wet panels, lightning risk, falls-from-height. Use a contractor for any roof inspection.

If you do see visible damage after a storm, our guides on storm damage to solar panels, microcracks and unexpected performance loss cover the diagnostic process. The right order is always: photograph, document, contact your installer or insurer, and avoid any DIY roof access.