Latest news with #JasonKaminsky
New York Times
14 hours ago
- Sport
- New York Times
Two decades on, it's time to talk about Jason Kaminsky
Through the ornate black gates, past the red-bricked crematorium and along the tree-lined path, his gravestone is tucked away on the right. If you were not familiar with his story, you might read the epitaph and wonder why he died so young. 'Always in our hearts,' it reads in gold lettering. Nobody, though, outside a small circle would know this was the resting place for an ex-football starlet. Advertisement Most fans would not even be familiar with the name Jason Kaminsky, let alone the tragic chain of events that led, 20 years ago, to a front-page headline — 'Footballer drank himself to death' — in his local newspaper. Even some of his former team-mates will admit being unsure, mystified even, about what exactly went wrong after an 18-year-old Kaminsky made his first-team debut in a Nottingham Forest side featuring Roy Keane, Teddy Sheringham and Nigel Clough. Forest were playing at Luton Town — April 14, 1992 — and Kaminsky entered play as a substitute for Des Walker, the England international centre-half, in a switch that saw Clough move into defence and the teenager deployed alongside Sheringham in attack. Two days earlier, Forest had played Manchester United in the League Cup final. It was Forest's sixth Wembley final in four seasons and, though it ended in a 1-0 defeat, that period will always be fondly remembered at the City Ground. Kaminsky, a prolific striker in Forest's youth team, was tipped for a brilliant future. 'I used to look up to the older players and Jason, in particular, had a reputation for having everything,' says Steve Guinan, one of his team-mates in Forest's youth system. 'He was a couple of years older than me. He was incredibly talented and, as a centre-forward myself, I remember thinking, 'Jesus, if I have any chance of making it here, my path might be blocked by this guy'. 'He had legs like tree trunks. He was strong, he was quick, and he could score goals. And we still talk about him all these years later. I'm still in touch with a lot of the players and, even now, someone will say, 'B****y hell, if the same happened nowadays, with a young Premier League player, it would be big news'. Back then, however, it wasn't like that at all.' Kaminsky described his debut as a 'dream moment' and, originating from nearby Leicester, talked about feeling inspired by the city's favourite son, England striker Gary Lineker. Advertisement Yet the tragic facts are that Kaminsky never kicked a ball again in top-level football, for Forest or any other club. He was 31 years old when he died, and the sequence of events after that breakthrough game — rejection, drift, and, ultimately, illness and addiction — will always grieve the people who knew him best and remember happier times. Kaminsky had been a favourite of Clough, Forest's legendary manager, and a popular member of the dressing room. 'One of the nicest lads you could ever meet' is a line used by many of his former team-mates. To tell this story properly, however, it is important to remember he was more than just a footballer. He was a son, a brother, a nephew, a grandson, and, when Leia arrived in 1993, the father of a baby girl. His daughter was 11 when he died and, two decades on, there is something profoundly sad about flicking through the newspaper cuttings from the time to revisit the accounts of his heartbroken family. 'Jason couldn't cope after he was released from Forest, so he started drinking heavily,' his brother, Stephen, then 23, told the Leicester Mercury. 'He had potential as a great player and he was very close to Brian Clough. But when Clough left and a new manager came in, the club had different plans and that was really the end for Jason. 'He didn't do a lot for a couple of years apart from drown his sorrows. The problem grew worse over the years and now it's killed him. It's such a waste. He was the most caring, kind man in the world who just couldn't cope when his dreams fell apart.' Leia will be 32 on her next birthday. It falls in October and, speaking to The Athletic, it is not lost on her that she has now lived longer than her father did. 'It really blows my mind to look back at my own life, then realise my dad was younger than I am now and think about all the things he never got to do,' she says. 'It's made me realise life is so precious. I don't just live for myself any more, I live for my dad as well.' Advertisement Leia was too young to see for herself why her father was known to friends as 'Jase the Ace'. Growing up, however, she learnt all about his talent for scoring goals and how, having joined Forest as a schoolboy, there were people telling him he would be 'the new George Best'. That comparison can feel jarring now, knowing what we do about how their lives ended and what led to it. Best, a Manchester United great, died at age 59 in November 2005 after a long battle with alcoholism. For Kaminsky, it was seven weeks earlier. So Leia holds on gratefully to happier memories: the father-daughter moments, the holidays, the shopping trips, the times when they went out in his car and, with the roof down, she came to the conclusion he might just be the coolest man to walk the earth. It was pretty cool, just for starters, that he named her after Princess Leia from the Star Wars movies. And it was definitely cool that he wanted to go on his own galactic expeditions. 'He used to talk to me about wanting to explore space and how, if he had one wish, it would be to jump on a spaceship and meet an alien,' says Leia. 'Or he'd tell me he wanted to invent the world's first ever tickle machine. It was such a fun idea and, as a little girl, I'd hang on to every word.' The truth was, he could make Leia laugh even without a tickle machine. She would laugh and laugh until her sides ached. 'There were long periods when he was a great dad, and that's what I will always hold onto,' says Leia. 'There were other times when he wasn't in a good place, or in good health, because of his drinking. But I try to lock out those memories and hold on tight to the more positive memories. Because there are so many of them. He really was a brilliant dad, when he could be.' Kaminsky had been dating Leia's mother, Taressa, since his days as a brilliant prospect in Leicester's youth football scene. He was smitten, absolutely smitten. They both were. 'He lived just down the road from me,' says Taressa, sitting beside her daughter. 'But we actually met on the number 14 bus into Leicester city centre. Jason, being Jason, was wearing a pink tracksuit. He stood out from everyone — olive skin, big smile, dark wavy hair — and, as he walked down the bus, I just thought, 'Wow'. He looked at me, I looked at him, and that was it. Instant eye connection.' Advertisement Leicester had wanted to sign him on schoolboy terms and that, of course, was tempting for a boy who had grown up in that city. Ultimately, though, Kaminsky preferred to join their East Midlands neighbours, 25 miles (40km) away. 'Forest have a great record of producing young players,' he explained in a Q&A with the matchday programme. 'And it's not everyone who gets the chance to work for Brian Clough.' So he settled into 'digs' at 21 Colwick Road, right next to Forest's stadium, with another talented Leicester boy by the name of Cuan Forrest. The two 16-year-olds had been scouted from the same junior team, Blaby & Whetstone, and it wasn't long before Kaminsky was on manager Clough's radar. 'Jason was deadly in front of goal,' says Forrest. 'He could shoot with either foot. He scored in twos and threes and he had this incredible habit of cutting in from the left before drilling a left-footed shot, very hard and low, across the goalkeeper and, unerringly, just inside the far post. 'Even when he made the step up to reserve-team football, it was the same. There was a run of eight or nine games when he scored in every game. The goals were flying in and we'd be thinking, 'It surely can't be long before he gets his opportunity in the first team'.' Kaminsky scored 23 times in 29 games for the youth team before being fast-tracked into Clough's squad. He was still a YTS (Youth Training Scheme) boy, and when he made that first-team debut at Luton, it felt like the start of something special. 'I was on the bench with him,' says Vance Warner, a centre-half who came through Forest's youth system at the same time. 'It was the first time either of us had been bumped up to the first team and, before kick-off, the public announcer had to read out our names from the team sheet. 'He went through them all — 'Des Walker, Nigel Clough, Roy Keane…' — then started going through the list of substitutes. He got to my name and introduced me as 'Vanik Worbury'. Hahaha! What the hell? 'Vanik Worbury?' But we were just kids. Nobody really knew who we were.' Advertisement Forest lost 2-1 to a Luton side who ended up being relegated a few weeks later, but Kaminsky made a good impression and, chasing a late equaliser, it was the teenager's header that set up Sheringham to volley past Luton's goalkeeper. An offside flag spoiled the moment, but 'the bairn', as Clough called him (northern slang for 'kid'), had shown his potential and got a hug from the Forest manager afterwards. 'Jason played like a man while the rest of us in the youth team were still boys,' says Warner. 'He was very powerful, but extremely pacy. So he had that combination, Didier Drogba-esque, of pace and power to bully defenders. Physically, he was beyond his years. And he had that force of personality where he didn't seem afraid of anything.' Flick through the old programmes now and, for almost every game, there is another write-up about Kaminsky's goal-scoring exploits for Archie Gemmill's reserve team or the under-18s side, coached by John Perkins and Paul Hart, that won the Midlands Purity Youth League in successive seasons. Kaminsky scored five goals in one pre-season fixture. 'Hat-trick spree,' reads another caption. Over time, it became the norm to see him smiling back from the programme's glossy pages: bright eyes, hair gelled back, wearing a Forest youth-team shirt sponsored by Cambrian Soft Drinks. 'For his age, he was probably the best centre-forward in the game,' says Steve Blatherwick, a future Forest team-mate but then playing as a centre-back in Notts County's youth team. 'Not just in Nottingham, but the entire youth scene. If you drew Forest in the cup, your first reaction would be: 'Oh, God… Jason Kaminsky!' 'He was tough. He broke my nose in one match. We had some tremendous battles. But I always respected him because he was such a competitor. He scored a shedload of goals and, every time we played them, all the Notts players would come off the pitch saying: 'How the hell is he not in their first team?'.' Life was good. Kaminsky was asked in a programme Q&A, 'Spotlight on Youth', about the funniest incident he had seen on a football field and recalled a team-mate's misfortune. 'Luke Yates came up to take a corner, but instead of making contact with the ball, he kicked the flag… everyone just cracked up.' Advertisement It was an opportunity to learn more about the new kid on the block: that he liked to go fishing, that he would be a DJ if he were not a footballer, and that if he could sign any three players in the world, he would pick Marco van Basten, Ruud Gullit and Jean-Pierre Papin. The one person he would love to meet? George Best. What he didn't reveal was that he had spent a big wedge of his signing-on fee, having agreed his first professional contract, on a white Ford Escort XR3i convertible. 'That car was his pride and joy,' recalls Forrest. 'He'd go on and on about wanting one. So, as soon as he could afford it, he bought one. 'One problem: he tried almost every insurance company in the country and nobody would insure a footballer of that age with that kind of car. It was uninsurable. In the end, he worked out a way to put it in his grandad's name. But it sat there, unused, on the drive of his grandparents' house for months. We'd go there sometimes and just sit in the front seats, rather than actually driving it.' Sitting behind the wheel, Kaminsky talked to his friend about his dreams, his ambitions and the future he saw for himself and Taressa. What he could never have realised was that it was going to be Clough's 18th and final year as Forest's manager and how that, in turn, would have shattering effects on his own life. And what happened next, to quote Forrest, was 'brutal'. At the age of 19, Kaminsky was about to find out, the hard way, how quickly everything in football can change. It is one of the saddest ironies that Kaminsky's happiest times at Forest coincided with the part of Clough's life when alcohol was starting to bring down one of the greatest football managers there has ever been. Stories of Clough's boozing have been exaggerated over the years, to the detriment of the man who led Forest to back-to-back European Cups in 1979 and 1980. In 1992, however, his alcohol consumption had started to affect his performance and blur that previously razor-sharp judgement. Advertisement Within a year, Forest had been relegated and Clough — visibly unwell, face reddened and pockmarked — had been ushered into retirement, aged 58. 'Jason idolised him,' says Taressa. 'Clough was one of his legends, one of the main people in his life. They had such a rapport, such a great relationship. But then Clough was gone and, after that, it was never the same.' Maybe it was Kaminsky's bad luck that Frank Clark, Forest's next manager, signed Stan Collymore during his first summer in the job. Collymore went on to become, in the eyes of many Forest fans, the most supreme centre-forward in the club's entire history. Sheringham had gone, and Nigel Clough, too. But the club had Jason Lee in reserve. Lee Glover was further backup. Gary Bull, too. Kaminsky? He was pushed to the edges in a way he had never foreseen. 'Jason was so unlucky with timing,' says Forrest. 'If things had been different with Clough, I genuinely believe Jason was on the cusp of great things. He was a raw diamond — all it needed was a bit of polishing and refining to make him the finished article. And nobody, of course, did that better than Clough.' Inside the club, there was still a lot of goodwill for a player who had won over the senior members of the squad and become a regular, often with Taressa, among the group who used to make the most of Nottingham's nightlife. 'Jason was front and centre of the dressing-room banter,' says Guinan. 'You knew when he was in the building because you could hear him. He was involved in all the pranks and he'd push the boundaries sometimes, because that was the kind of larger-than-life character he was. That's what made him so well-liked.' Stuart Pearce, the Forest captain and England international left-back, was one of the players who recognised Kaminsky's potential. Advertisement 'I remember one Christmas party,' says Guinan. 'All the players came in fancy dress. Roy Keane was dressed up, Stuart Pearce was dressed up. 'Jason was a first-year pro at the time. We went to a bar called Brownes and I remember Stuart sitting him down and saying, 'Listen, Jase, you're a great lad, you've got a great future, but you need to settle down, focus on your football'. 'Jason was cracking a few jokes. And Stuart was laughing along. 'But you know I'm being serious', he said. 'A lot of it is fun and jokes with you, but you need to get your head on it'. It was comical for the rest of us. Because, as he was getting this advice from one of the greatest players of his generation, Jason was dressed as Zippy from the children's TV show Rainbow.' That popularity with the other players made it even more painful when, just a few months into Clark's reign, Forest let the teenager know they planned to terminate his contract. Kaminsky, in Warner's words, was 'kind-hearted, funny and self-deprecating, but had an intensity about him, too'. He loved what Forest gave him: the togetherness, the camaraderie and the sheer excitement about what the future might hold. But when it was all taken away, part of his identity was stripped away, too. 'He was crushed,' says Taressa, with unmistakable sadness in her eyes. Forest won promotion back to the Premier League and, the following year, finished third in England's top division, qualifying for the UEFA Cup (now the Europa League). Collymore established himself as a regular destroyer of defences and Clark was touted for manager-of-the-year awards. Kaminsky, meanwhile, had started to drift and ended up playing for amateur teams such as Leicester United and Oadby Town while facing the question from friends, team-mates and even some opponents — 'What happened?' — that he must have heard, and dreaded, more than any other. Advertisement He also had a severance payment from Forest that meant he had the cash to spend more time in various drinking establishments than was good for him. Everything had unravelled so quickly and, as his alcohol intake accelerated, Taressa moved out to care for their baby daughter. They were difficult times and, in many ways, Kaminsky was a product of his surroundings. Football in the 1990s had a well-established drinking culture and it was no different at Forest: the players went out every weekend after the game and almost always had a big Monday night, too. Quite often, Wednesdays or Thursdays as well. As Keane wrote in his autobiography: 'When the business was done, I loved my nights on the town. 'Work hard, play hard' was my motto.' And he was far from alone. 'It was the norm,' says Forrest. 'It's different now, because of all the information and education about drinking. Back then, however, we were just emulating the players above us. We did it because they did it. There was a lot of temptation and we were out pretty much every weekend.' By then, though, Kaminsky was drinking for different reasons and nobody could be sure over the coming years whether he had fully recovered from his post-Forest depression. He and Taressa had remained close and there were times when he let his guard down and wept in her company. Mostly, though, he tried to hide any vulnerability. Everyone says the same: he was a proud man who hated the idea he might be viewed as a failure. 'He masked it very well,' says Taressa. 'He was naturally such a happy-go-lucky person. He had that big smile and he always put on a front even if, inside, he was probably struggling with certain things.' It was the start of a downward spiral that should tell us a lot about the cruelty of addiction, as well as the impact that it can have on the people who see its effects, close up, on a loved one. Advertisement Yet there were also long spells when Kaminsky was able to refrain from drinking and, living back in Leicester, everything seemed OK in the world again. He devoted himself to setting up a landscape gardening business and, on Sunday mornings, he still had enough enthusiasm to turn out for local teams such as Leicester Markets and Bardon Hill. He wanted Leia to learn Ukrainian (Kaminsky came from an Irish-Ukrainian family). He encouraged her to play the piano and, when he moved into a new house, she has never forgotten the excitement of being invited over for the first time. 'I always remember my dad turning to me. 'Well,' he said, 'do you want to see your room?' I ran up the stairs and the room was exactly how I wanted. It was purple, my favourite colour, and had one of those cool bunk-beds with a desk and computer at the bottom. He'd set it all up for me. I felt like a kid on Christmas Day.' On one trip away, Kaminsky took his daughter to Croagh Patrick, Ireland's holy mountain, and announced they were going to the top. Leia was six. And it was some climb, 2,500 feet up, to the peak. 'We'll do it together,' he told her. 'Remember: you've got athletic genes. You're just like me, Leia. Just look how strong your legs are.' Did she make it? Absolutely, though it did not spare her a telling-off when they got back to the bottom and she wandered away without telling anyone. The tragedy is that Kaminsky always fell back into drinking. It became an irregular yet established pattern, and it accelerated again in 2003 when he lost two of the people who meant the world to him. First, his grandfather, Wasyl, passed away. Then, five months later, it was his dad, Bohdan — or 'Bugsy', as he was known. Clough died from stomach cancer in September 2004, and again, that hit Kaminsky hard. Over the next year, friends and family could see he was becoming increasingly unwell. They tried everything they could to help him. Advertisement In the end, he was admitted to Leicester Royal Infirmary, where he spent eight weeks in a hospital bed. Every day, he would ring Taressa, checking that she and Leia were OK. Even in his weakest moments, he remained devoted to the people who mattered the most to him. But his health was deteriorating. He needed a liver transplant and, fatally, there was no donor. Leia had just started at the same school in Leicester, English Martyrs, where he had once been a pupil, and where a big display cabinet in the main entrance had a picture of him as one of their celebrated alumni. He died on September 28, 2005. 'I'll never forget that day,' says Leia. 'I was called to the school offices and they told me I needed to go to my nan's (grandmother's) house rather than going home as usual. I was such a young girl, I didn't really think anything of it. So I got the bus to my nan's house. And that's when I found out. 'It was so unexpected, such a huge shock, and that's the weirdest thing. Looking back, I should have known. I really should have seen it coming. I'd visited him in hospital and I knew he was very unwell. I knew it was bad. But he was my dad and, in my head, I'd told myself that he was always going to be OK.' What has never been fully explained is why, having been released by Forest, Kaminsky never found a way back into professional football. So many other players from that youth team — Paul McGregor, Craig Armstrong, Ian Kilford, Bobby Howe, Alan Mahood, Guinan, Warner and various others — went on to have careers at Forest or further down the leagues. But not Kaminsky, the one who had been the star in their midst. 'It's hard to understand,' says Guinan. 'I stayed at Forest into my twenties, had multiple loan spells and ended up forging a career for myself. Jason had far more ability than I ever had, so why didn't he drop down a couple of levels to work his way back up? I really don't know.' Advertisement It is a question the people closest to Kaminsky have often asked themselves, and they cannot be absolutely certain either. Yet they know enough to suspect that his heart was no longer in it. 'Jason loved Forest and didn't want to play anywhere else,' says Taressa. 'He'd often say to me: 'This club is me'. He really thought he would spend his whole career there.' Was there nobody in the sport who could help his career get back on an upward trajectory? Well, no, that was part of the problem. It was an era when only a few players had agents. There was little of what would now be called 'aftercare' for young, often badly affected players who had experienced the emotional anguish of being released. And no real understanding of how damaging it could be for their mental well-being. There were no counsellors, no psychologists, no exit plans — no goodbyes, in some cases. Most players in that position had little choice but to send a letter to every lower-division club where there was realistically a chance of being offered a trial. Yet something stopped Kaminsky from taking that option. Was his confidence affected? Did he fear more rejection? Mentally, was he still trying to process what had happened at Forest? Or, perhaps, a bit of everything? All that can really be said for certain is that, five years after leaving Forest, a lot had changed in Kaminsky's life when his old team-mate Nigel Clough offered him a way back into the game. Clough had taken over as Burton Albion's player-manager. 'I tried to sign Jason because I'd remembered him as a big, strong striker with lots of potential,' Clough said at the time. 'Unfortunately, he had one or two problems, which meant he was unable to join us. It is an extremely sad story.' Perhaps it is also worth bearing in mind that this was a time when the football industry cared little for the subject of mental health and had even less understanding when it came to players, or ex-players, who needed professional help. Advertisement 'I remember when Stan Collymore joined Aston Villa and talked about having depression,' says Guinan. 'People were asking, 'How can you be depressed on £50,000 a week?'. The general attitude was: just get on with it. So I don't know what support would have been available for Jason if he did need help. 'The PFA (Professional Footballers' Association, effectively the players' trade union in the English game) has always been there. Back then, however, I couldn't have told you how the hell to contact them. And it would have taken an awful lot of bravery to pick up the phone and say: 'Listen, I think there's something wrong'. Mental health just wasn't a big thing in football back then — people didn't know how to react to it.' This is one of the reasons Taressa and Leia have chosen to speak publicly. Mother and daughter want to be part of a proper, grown-up discussion, even though their previous experiences of the media were bruising in the extreme. None of the reports in 2005 seemed to care too much about who Kaminsky really was: his personality, his background, his life. None of the newspapers examined whether the sport could have done more for him. Or that it was football that had introduced him, as a young man, to drinking in the first place. 'Footballer drank himself to death' — that headline in Leicester's main newspaper just added to the family's suffering. 'There wasn't any real empathy or conscious awareness about what addiction meant,' says Leia. 'We want there to be more positive awareness so it — addiction — is no longer used to shame or talk down to people. Because that's what happened previously. It's a genuine illness, a disease. Yet it's so hard to understand unless you have been in that situation yourself.' More than anything, they want Kaminsky to be remembered for the right reasons. A year after his death, a match was arranged between Leicester Markets and a team of 'Leicester City Legends', raising money for the British Liver Trust. An online auction was also held. Keane donated a pair of football boots. Nigel Clough supplied a shirt from one of his 14 games for England. Other items were supplied by Pearce and Brian Laws, among others, from the old Forest crew. Advertisement Kaminsky was buried in the same plot at Leicester's Gilroes cemetery as his father, grandfather Wasyl, and grandmother Maria. Friends still talk about the incredible turnout for his funeral at the city's Ukrainian church. They remember the little things, too: his brightly coloured tracksuits, his love of Black Eyed Peas, and how he never missed an episode of Twin Peaks, his favourite TV series. And, yes, how he loved to be tickled. On Leia's phone, meanwhile, she has all sorts of photographs. One shows her father in his football kit. Another shows him washing his grandad's car. One of her favourites is from her Holy Communion. Another shows him with Taressa, and the two lovebirds look so young and happy. Their daughter was born on October 30, 1993. And Leia can laugh as she takes up the story. 'He made sure I was out before Hallowe'en,' she explains. 'These are the stories my mum has shared with me. 'Please,' he was begging her. 'I'll buy you the biggest diamond ring. You need to push harder or we could end up with a Hallowe'en witch.' He was such a comedian. And he got his way. I arrived five minutes before midnight.' Whatever you're going through, you can call the Samaritans any time, from any phone, on 116 123 (UK) or 1-800-273-TALK (USA). If you are looking for support for alcohol addiction or issues, Mind has some useful tools available here. (Top illustration: Illustration: Kelsea Petersen / The Athletic; Photos courtesy of Nottingham Forest, Cuan Forrest and Leia Kaminsky) Spot the pattern. Connect the terms Find the hidden link between sports terms Play today's puzzle
Business Wire
23-04-2025
- Business
- Business Wire
kWh Analytics and Nextracker Collaborate to Cut Municipal Solar Insurance Deductible by 50 Percent Through Innovative Hail Stow Technology
SAN FRANCISCO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--kWh Analytics, the market leader in Climate Insurance, today announced a successful collaboration with Nextracker, a global leader in advanced solar energy solutions, that resulted in a 50 percent reduction in severe convective storm deductible for a solar project in Arkansas. This partnership demonstrates how strategic technology implementation can significantly improve insurance terms while enhancing risk mitigation for renewable energy assets. This partnership demonstrates how strategic technology implementation can significantly improve insurance terms while enhancing risk mitigation for renewable energy assets. The collaboration was initiated when traditional carriers became unwilling to cover a municipal solar developer's hail risk, a growing challenge for solar assets in severe weather regions. kWh Analytics, recognizing that the project employed Nextracker's solar tracking systems, developed an innovative insurance structure with comprehensive hail limits with low deductibles contingent on the implementation of Nextracker NX Horizon Hail Pro™ automated stow technology. 'This collaboration with Nextracker exemplifies how data-driven underwriting can incentivize resilience measures and benefit all stakeholders,' said Jason Kaminsky, CEO of kWh Analytics. 'By quantifying the risk reduction from advanced technologies like automated hail stow, we're able to offer significantly improved insurance terms.' The NX Horizon™ tracker system features core technology that enables rapid stowing without relying on grid power. The Nextracker asset management team collaborated with the municipal utility to upgrade existing tracker systems to include Hail Pro control system hardware and firmware, unlocking automatic stow capability. These enhancements included integrating DTN hail forecasting service and Nextracker's tailored hail stow thresholds, which trigger automatic stowing based on hail size, proximity to the site, and likelihood of impact. 'As extreme weather events become more frequent, having the ability to actively mitigate hail risk is becoming essential for solar asset owners and insurers,' said Andrew Griffiths, vice president asset management, Nextracker. 'Our Hail Pro technology is delivering measurable value by keeping critical infrastructure operating in the field, and in this case, contributing to lower insurance deductibles. This collaboration proves that smarter tracker design and advanced software can strengthen asset resilience and improve project economics.' For the developer, the benefits extended beyond insurance savings to operational improvements and peace of mind. 'This is so much easier and lets us sleep better at night and focus on preserving utility services for our community members,' said the municipal utility operations manager. This collaboration exemplifies how partnerships across the renewable energy industry can deliver tangible benefits for all stakeholders. When technology providers, insurers, and asset owners work together, they create innovative solutions that can reduce risk, lower costs, and enhance project reliability. You can learn more about the insurance deductible benefits resulting from this collaboration in kWh Analytics' case study. ABOUT kWh Analytics kWh Analytics, a leading Climate Insurance provider, underwrites property insurance and revenue firming products for renewable energy assets. Our proprietary database of 300,000+ zero-carbon projects and $100B in loss data fuels advanced modeling and insights, enabling precise underwriting decisions. This data-driven approach incorporates resiliency measures in risk evaluation, promoting sustainable practices in the renewable energy sector. Trusted by 5 of the top 10 global (re)insurance carriers, we've insured over $40 billion in assets to date. Our tailored solutions further our mission of providing best-in-class Insurance for our Climate. Recognized by InsuranceERM Climate and Sustainability Awards, kWh Analytics continues to pioneer in the renewable energy insurance sector. Learn more at or LinkedIn
