With many organizations giving sustainability a higher priority, solar farms have grown as one of the cleanest, renewable, and environmentally friendly sources of energy. Unlike other energy sources, solar farms do not release greenhouse gases into the air.
They reduce carbon emissions while supporting energy independence and economic growth. Harnessing solar power allows regions to avoid relying on volatile oil markets, finite fossil fuel resources, and energy imports from foreign resources. They play a key role in delivering power to thousands of customers.
Their large-scale installations contain vast amounts of solar panels. Most solar farms support at least one megawatt, which is the equivalent of 166 solar systems in homes. Someone needs to build, install, operate, and maintain solar farms. Therefore, they contribute to the economy as they create jobs in a variety of industries including research, engineering, construction, and manufacturing.
The downside of solar power is the high initial investment that includes buying the land and panels, installing them, and building an infrastructure to ensure every panel continues to operate efficiently.
However, once the costs are recouped, aside from maintenance costs, the energy generated is essentially free. It can be a great source of income for those who already have large swaths of land at their disposal.
Of course, the other disadvantage is that solar farms depend on the sun to generate energy. Nighttime, cloudy days, and seasonal weather conditions can affect the amount of energy the solar farms generate.
Criminals Targeting Solar Farms
The other issue solar farms run into is crime. Their value and remote locations make them a target for criminal activity including theft, protesters, trespassing, and vandalism.
Many people view solar farms as a sustainable, environment-friendly solution, but some protesters think differently. A Reuters story says protesters believe solar companies are in it for the money and hurting the environment in other ways. Moreover, there may be concerns from neighbors in the rural area who don’t like the look of solar farms.
According to World Energy, solar crime is on the rise. The causes are increasing copper prices, higher cost of living, inflation, and organized crime ring activity. Thieves also target solar farms for their cable. Copper, cables, and other solar panel parts have a high scrap value.
According to the World Energy article, there has been an almost 50% rise in theft of cables and solar panels between 2021 and 2022. Considering solar farms are in remote areas, organized crime rings go after places with huge amounts of solar parts. The story mentions one theft in which the crooks swiped more than 15,000 panels, the equivalent of 5 MW. Organized crime rings have the resources to pull off things like this.
While crime rings are a huge concern, some individuals steal from solar farms as a crime of opportunity. They’re taking a risk to grab solar farm parts to resell. Online marketplaces make it easy to skirt legitimate businesses who follow the protocol and check paperwork.
The location of solar farms in rural areas reduces the chances of getting caught. It’s possible for one person to do a lot of damage. Detectives from the Fresno Sherrif’s office arrested a suspect who stole more than $100,000 in copper wire from a solar panel farm.
In New Gloucester, Maine, WMTW 8 reports that two suspects used a construction equipment vehicle to cause thousands of dollars’ worth of damage at a solar panel farm. They knocked over solar panels, a fence, and one of the arrays. The aftermath included twisted metal and shattered glass. All told, the damage is estimated to be worth almost half a million dollars. It could have been worse. The skid steer broke down in the middle of the destruction. If it had not, they probably would have done more damage.
Some solar farms can fall victim to someone’s frustration with injustice. USA Today tells the story of a suspect who targeted and attacked businesses for their alleged support of Israel. The suspect caused a lot of damage to businesses in the Orlando, Florida area.
Court documents state the suspect allegedly attacked a solar farm where he’s suspected of smashing panels, cutting water, and causing other damage to the tune of more than $700,000.
Other Security Risks Affecting the Solar Farms
Crime isn’t the only challenge solar farms face. The following lists other areas of vulnerability that make solar farms highly susceptible to attacks.
1. Rural location
Solar farms are often located in rural areas. This creates a setting in which trespassers wouldn’t worry about being caught. They think they’re far out in the middle of nowhere. No one is going to see them. The other thing solar farms need to pay attention to is ensuring law enforcement and other first responders can find them easily.
2. Distribution solar panels
Solar panels are huge and spread out, which makes it challenging to secure them. The wide distribution of solar panels can open them to attacks. Solar farms need security that can help them spot problems as soon as they happen to ensure a proactive response.
3. Breakable barriers
Barriers such as gates and fences can help protect assets. This is especially helpful when the solar farm uses barriers to create a single point of entry and exit. However, as in the Maine story, two suspects can easily bypass the barriers.
With solar farms located in widely distributed out-of-the-way places with little traffic and their components fully exposed, it causes them to become prime beneficiaries of vandalism and theft of parts.
Proactive Solar Farm Security
The best physical security for solar panel farms contains multiple layers. Fencing is one layer. Lighting is another layer. Signage indicating the area is under surveillance is another layer. Because of the vastness of a solar farm, video cameras with remote monitoring are one of the most powerful solar farm security solutions. This solution comes with multiple layers of security.
Advanced video surveillance technologies come with artificial intelligence. These systems can greatly enhance real-time monitoring and threat detection capabilities. More so when they have trained monitoring operators working with artificial intelligence. Together, they can help catch potential problems and lead to rapid response to solar panel security incidents.
Artificial intelligence supplements human monitoring by doing the monotonous part of the job. However, artificial intelligence can’t work alone because it can make mistakes, and it does not know what to do in any given scenario. Instead, artificial intelligence alerts a trained monitoring operator who knows how to respond.
Some things the monitoring operator can do are contact the solar farm or a representative, call the police, send a verbal warning over a remote speaker (the monitoring operator is located elsewhere away from the property), or all of the above.
Since the solar farm may be located far from emergency services, the monitoring operator can follow and identify the suspects to pass the information to law enforcement. If they get away before law enforcement arrives, the information from the video feed can help apprehend the guilty party.
Unlike traditional security, video surveillance paired with monitoring takes a pre-emptive approach to solar farm security. It can help avert crime and damage before the situation escalates to dangerous outcomes that result in broken panels, the shutting down of systems, and the costs associated with replacing expensive components.
Effective solar panel security must also protect itself from cyber threats to ensure the solar panels continue to operate without interruption. Video cameras have an advantage in that they can watch everything at once including in rural locations. The right security company can make sure the network on these cameras operates in these remote areas.
Whether someone plans a physical or cyberattack, it’s important to invest in the convergence of cybersecurity and physical security to help the solar panel be more resilient and fortify the protection of its assets. The convergence of these security goes a long way toward the development of proactive comprehensive solar panel security strategies that tackle physical breaches and cyberattacks.
Another component to consider is that solar panels are big. It does not take much for a suspect to get hurt in their attempt to damage or dismantle the solar panel. Despite committing an illegal activity, the solar farm company can be held liable for their injuries. Video cameras can go a long way to help minimize liability issues.
In the search for video cameras with remote monitoring, look for systems with high-definition security cameras with advanced artificial intelligence and trained human monitoring operators. The partnership of artificial intelligence and monitoring operators can help increase the chance of spotting suspicious activity before anything happens.
The solar farm industry has different security requirements from those of other industries. They need a custom security solution because of the nature of solar farms. Start by talking to security professionals about solar farm security experience.
The right video surveillance technology with remote monitoring can yield a return on your investment within months. To learn more about how remote monitoring and video surveillance can protect solar farms, check out Remote Video Surveillance: More Than Just Catching Criminals. For a solar farm security solution that can maximize your ROI, contact us.
Texas Private Security License Number: B14187
California Alarm Operator License Number: ACO7876
Florida Alarm System Contractor I License Number: EF20001598
Tennessee Alarm Contracting Company License Number: 2294
Virginia Private Security Services Business License Number: 11-19499
Alabama Electronic Security License # 002116
Canada TSBC License: LEL0200704
