Yup you heard it right! Criminal gangs have started to increasingly target Solar Installations focusing on Solar Modules, Cabling and Inverters. In US and India, the Module theft is now on all time high as these systems are relatively easy to steal.
In India, these crimes often happen in the night mostly at Utility scale power plants, where Thiefs come and remove large quantity of Solar Modules and also in some cases the whole system if it is small.
The Situation is somewhat same in US. Recently SolarInsure, a US Insurer which focus on Solar Power Projects said that there is a significant increase in Solar Panel Robbery. They said that the Solar Theft has been growing 15% since 2002. They also added that the Top three locations for theft are installations in rural areas, schools and Wineries.
Also it is not just US and India, recently 304 solar modules worth about £100,000 were stollen from a large scale Solar project in North Yorkshire.
And where does this Modules end Up? How can we protect ourselfs from this theft? stay tuned for the second part.
