Solar panels are a favorite among the green thumb population. They help create renewable energy coming from the sun. However, it seems like they are not the only ones developing fondness over them. Even thieves do.
Why Thieves Want Your Solar Panels
If you happen to wake up one morning without your panels on, then you have already become a victim of solar theft, which is one of the most recent types of crimes today. These criminals would climb over your roofs, remove your panels, and sell them even in auction websites such as Ebay. The question is why do they do that? It’s because these types of energy instruments don’t come really cheap, and yet, these burglars will be able to offer them at a very low price to unwitting home owners. For example, a panel that’s worth more than a thousand can be sold at around $500 or even less, and that’s instant money for them since they never really bought the equipment anyway.
On the other hand, it’s not only the home owners that are having this problem. Even those that are operating solar installation businesses are now considered as potential victims. One from San Jose, California, for instance, lost over $25,000 worth of solar panels.
What Can Be Done
So far, this kind of burglary is keeping the police and other law enforcement agencies, as well as solar manufacturing companies, to be very busy that sometimes they can hardly keep track of hundreds of cases that need to be solved. In fact, they are calling it the crime of the future. It doesn’t also help that most of these thieves are selling these items online, which makes it a lot harder to trace.
Thus, they advised the public to do the following things to improve the security measures:
1. Install surveillance cameras into their roofs. It doesn’t necessarily mean that you can stop the theft, but it will help you identify who has done it. This will become very helpful to the police, since they can already determine the person that they are going to look for. If you can’t install a video camera, then better set up an alarm system, which can be attached to your solar array. Every time someone tries to remove it from the roof, a loud sound will instantly go off, alerting you, your neighbors, and even the thief himself.
2. Use panels that are very hard to unscrew. This procedure is already very common in Europe. Their panels are so strongly attached to the roof that it will take time before they can be removed by the thieves. If not, they would have lost all their energy and eventually just give up. If you have installed a security system, it will also give you ample time to catch him in the act.
Solar theft is still covered by your homeowner’s insurance, so you know that you can always replace it. But once this practice becomes rampant, you may already sense their resistance to process your claim. Before you can get into this kind of situation, improve the security system of your solar panels now.
Thanks the Techstore Team
