Many of you will have heard of incidents of lead being stolen off the roofs of homes, churches and business premises but how many of you have come across solar panels being stolen having been installed on a roof? We suspect – not many of you!
Well, apparently, that is exactly what is believed to have happened at the premises of a business in Burton upon Trent, Staffordshire. Solar panels were installed by Green Build Energy on the roof of GRM Development Solutions within the last couple of weeks at the company’s premises at a business park in Burton upon Trent.
A few days later, during the night of Wednesday last week, in excess of 60 of the solar panels believed to be worth £30,000 were stolen from the roof. It is the view of the company that installed the solar panels that the thieves must have taken hours to remove them as it had taken four days to actually fit all of them. Apparently, those responsible may have climbed up scaffolding at the premises to gain access to the panels that were then thrown onto the grass below causing some to be damaged. The scaffolding was still up because a banner was still to be installed.
In total, those responsible, removed 62 solar panels that were two and a half meters square so they were a substantial size. Only a few were left in place on top of the roof.
Fortunately the solar panels were insured so no doubt an insurance claim will be submitted and the company will hopefully have the stolen solar panels replaced with any resulting damage put right. It does however raise an interesting question about the insurance of solar panels once they have been installed on your premises.
It is perhaps a sensible thing to contact your insurance company to notify them of your intention to have solar panels installed to make sure that they are covered under the terms of your buildings insurance policy along with any related fixtures, fittings and wiring etc.
