{"id":712498,"date":"2023-08-21T14:06:47","date_gmt":"2023-08-21T12:06:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=712498"},"modified":"2023-08-21T14:06:47","modified_gmt":"2023-08-21T12:06:47","slug":"tricking-criminals-with-broken-solar-panels-in-south-africa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/energy\/712498\/tricking-criminals-with-broken-solar-panels-in-south-africa\/","title":{"rendered":"Tricking criminals with ‘broken’ solar panels in South Africa"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

In a bid to mitigate rising solar panel theft, a European company is manufacturing and intentionally ‘damaging’ solar panels specifically for the South African market.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Theo de Jager, the executive director of the Southern African Agri Initiative (SAAI) and founder of Son SA, revealed this during an interview with Nuuspod<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Solar has become the most popular source of relief for South Africans as load shedding continues to throttle economic activity and disrupt general day-to-day life in South Africa.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

R12 billion worth of solar panels have been imported by South Africans so far in 2023. Since 2010, South Africa has imported R35 billion worth of solar panels. Imports were initially supported by government investment into renewables but are now primarily supported by private investment \u2013 including households and businesses. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, as homeowners and businesses turn to alternative power products to escape Eskom’s load shedding, criminals are exploiting the solar boom, which is now widespread across the country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the end of February, Fidelity ADT\u00a0reported<\/a>\u00a0that it had seen an alarming number of solar panels being stolen from properties, typically during the day while homeowners are at work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Criminals even started targeting the solar installers on the road before they reached their customers \u2013 stealing all their equipment and solar panels.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Speaking to eNCA<\/a>, electrical contractor Rodney Snyman said it\u2019s gotten to a point where installers are now removing solar installation advertising from their vehicles to avoid becoming a target.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Apart from the panels’ ability to generate electricity, the materials they’re made of are also valuable to criminals. \u201cThese solar panels and batteries are of very high value, as their components themselves \u2013 being silver, aluminium, and copper \u2013 are already highly valuable. So they have a high resale value,\u201d said Rodney Taylor, managing director of Guardian Eye.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Another reason why solar panels are a hot target is because they’re very easy to steal and conceal. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Forensic investigator, Calvin Rafadi, noted that all criminals need is a ladder to scale the roof and a spanner to unscrew the panels. He added that these criminals even come dressed in work suits and look like they are coming to maintain the panels when they are stealing them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Solar panel theft has become so rampant that an Eastern European manufacturer now produces panels that appear damaged to discourage theft<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n

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\"\"<\/a><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

De Jager recently met with a company representative to discuss their solar products. The representative showed him photos of their solar panels exported to South Africa, and he noticed that they all appeared broken.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAll the panels had something wrong with them \u2013 a corner that was missing or broken, cracked glass, and the like,\u201d De Jager said. At first, he thought the damaged panels were second-hand. However, the representative clarified that they were intentionally damaged new panels.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The company purposefully produces panels that look damaged for the South African market, making them less attractive to criminals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

Read: Ramokgopa working on solar deal with China<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Solar panel manufacturers have come up with a new way of making the panels less attractive to criminals in South Africa.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":712522,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9874],"tags":[8540,853],"class_list":["post-712498","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-energy","tag-solar","tag-south-africa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/712498","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=712498"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/712498\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":712568,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/712498\/revisions\/712568"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/712522"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=712498"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=712498"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=712498"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}