Solar power, with its promise of emissions-free renewable energy, boasts a growing number of fans. Some of them, it turns out, are thieves...Assuming that installations go up, this is probably going to become a much bigger problem. Which is why this graf at the end of the story caught my eye:
Just ask Glenda Hoffman, whose fury has not abated since 16 solar panels vanished from her roof in this sun-baked town in three separate burglaries in May, sometimes as she slept. She is ready if the criminals turn up again.“I have a shotgun right next to the bed and a .22 under my pillow,” Ms. Hoffman said.
Police departments in California — the biggest market for solar power, with more than 33,000 installations — are seeing a rash of such burglaries, though nobody compiles overall statistics.
In Europe, where the solar industry is well-established, thievery is entrenched, and measures to ward it off have become standard, including alarm systems and hard-to-unscrew panels.I'd be interested to see more info about this, I'm sure our European friends could teach us a few things about busting solar panel rings.
And does this mean that one of the green jobs we keep talking about will be solar theft detective?
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