Let me see if we can make it on the side…
Even if you hold the highest position in the school district, the top of one of your schools is not where you often go.
In fact, this is the first time Jefferson Syndicate Superintendent Michael Crilly hasn’t been on the high school roof since robbers were here last winter.
During their visit, they left with more than 100 solar panels from the school worth about $50,000.
They remove them right away.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T44Gzd3M2MQ
Not difficult at all to steal panels
Crilly’s reaction when he first heard about the robbery was understandable when the common people rob the school, you know. This is, this is the lowest of lows. Right now, across, he’s a little surprised. Surprised how easy this all seems.
When you stand up here and look at them, they’re remarkably easy to take apart. Sadly simple. And unfortunately more and more common.
How common is solar panel theft
Agobian is president of Solar Insure, a Southern California company specializing in the insurance of renewable energy systems.
He says: We are seeing an increase in solar panel thefts in California over the past 2 years, theft of solar panels jumped 26%.
In the Bay Area, there were flights to several Napa Valley wineries as well as several schools in the East Bay.
The common denominator between them seems to be large installations that are not very visible to the general public.
Here at Pacific School, it wasn’t until a member of the installation team returned to the site that someone noticed something was wrong. And it could have been a full 2 weeks after the flight. This is one of the reasons why the police made few arrests in these cases and recovered even fewer signs.
Who are the immediate suspects of the panel theft?
Investigators are the first to admit they really don’t know who’s behind it.
They say some may show up on Craigslist and eBay, but without any serial number database to check, no one can really be sure.
Agobian, however, has an idea of what is going on.
It appears that the theft is caused by people with knowledge of the industry. They know where the cameras are installed and they know how to take the signs.
Agobian thinks many of the stolen panels probably ended up in the people’s homes more than happy to get a bargain on solar panels but not wanting to ask too many questions.
He says fences, alarms and security cameras are now becoming necessary additions to the solar panel array. This means that the real impact of this crime wave will likely be to switch to the already expensive solar panels even more.