Just before midnight, two men in white coveralls and black gloves scale an electric fence at a solar farm in Chile’s Atacama Desert, then slip soundlessly into rows of sleek panels. Others use a poultry shear and electric angle grinder to breach the main gate. Three pickups without license plates pull in so the gang can load up their loot and race away.
The thieves typically have less than an hour before police arrive to disable cameras, slice cables and extract dozens of panels before vanishing into the dunes. In this case, there was only one security guard, who was instructed to hide in case of an intrusion. They tied him up anyway.
Chile is witnessing a surge in theft on solar farms. Many in the industry privately confirm they’ve been hit, yet few are willing to say so publicly as the stolen equipment slips into black markets.
In this narrow strip of the Andes, exceptionally sunny conditions, market-based electricity pricing and a favorable investment climate have fueled a swift photovoltaic build-out, from just 3% of total installed capacity in 2015 to a third of the system today, according to government data. Following a pattern in other places like California and the UK, this solar boom has brought crime along with it. But here the trend is turbocharged by more remote expanses and entrenched organized crime, posing risks for Chile’s critical infrastructure, with potential consequences for grid reliability and foreign investment.
“The theft of cables, panels or electronic equipment can temporarily shut down entire solar parks and cause significant economic losses,” said Erwin Plett, chief executive officer of renewable energy advisory Low Carbon Chile SpA, adding that it also drives up security and insurance costs. “Chile remains one of the most attractive renewable markets in the region, but maintaining that leadership requires ensuring the security of energy infrastructure.”
Five years ago, panel theft was rare, according to a service delivery manager whooversees more than 60 parks in Chile and wasn’t authorized to speak publicly. Since March last year, the manager’s portfolio recorded more than 30 thefts. In one case, a single site was hit five times in less than a month.
Fernando Navarro, project manager at Tritec-Intervento, the Chilean unit of a European solar energy company, says theft has become increasingly organized over his six years in the industry. At first incidents were minor — one or two panels disappearing over an eight-month construction period. Losses have since evolved into coordinated raids, with trucks hauling away four or five boxes at a time, with each box holding at least 30 panels.
The fragile panels weigh about 30 kilograms (66 pounds) and usually cost $60 to $70 apiece, and perpetrators know what to shut off and which components to target while avoiding safety risks to remove them, Navarro said. Often they dismantle the complex equipment to extract copper and make off with batteries, fencing and control systems too.
“The profile of these criminal groups committing these robberies is that they understand the utility of the equipment,” said Ana Lía Rojas, executive director of Chile’s Association of Renewable Energy and Storage, or Acera. “And there is a market willing to buy it in order to use it in ways different from what it was originally developed, purchased and installed for. That’s a major concern for us.”
Cables are the most frequently stolen components, accounting for 85.7% of cases, followed by PV panels at 54.8%, according to data from Chile’s Solar Energy Association, or Acesol.
Chile is hardly alone. “The rapid growth of solar energy, combined with the high value density of modules and the difficulty of tracking equipment without standardized identification, creates ideal conditions for theft in any country,” said Felipe Javier Ríos Ledesma, researcher at the Solar Energy Institute at the Polytechnic University of Madrid. “However, Chile has local conditions that make it particularly vulnerable.”
