Solar farms are springing up around the UK to generate renewable, low-carbon, and environmentally friendly energy. They’re also providing a much-needed boost to the revenues earned by agricultural businesses, farmers, and landowners.
One of the prevalent issues accompanying widespread investments in solar farms relates to the value of solar cells and panels, the complexities of securing and protecting solar farms located in open land, and deterring trespassing, criminal damage and targeted robberies in locations without cabling or infrastructure.
As specialists in agricultural security, we recognise the challenges and have put together a short guide to highlight our key recommendations and suggestions for ensuring solar farms remain profitable, sustainable, and protected while contributing to ambitious zero-carbon targets.
Recapping the Security Threats Experienced by Solar Farms
- Solar panels are high-value pieces of equipment which appeal to organised criminals and opportunist thieves – many recognise that farmers and landowners install solar farms before implementing robust, around-the-clock security.
- The location of solar farms naturally makes conventional security approaches redundant, adding to the attraction for trespassers and thieves who do not anticipate being apprehended, recorded, or prosecuted for criminal damage, vandalism, and theft.
- Most solar farms are away from public view, in open areas of land, which means criminal entry is unlikely to be seen, with the ability to trespass in rural and isolated environments and access significant amounts of solar equipment undetected.
The Evolving Security Threats Against Rural Solar Farms
While the majority of thefts target solar panels, the additional equipment and devices, from cabling to inverters, machinery, and installation tools, also attract high resale values, making an isolated solar farm an enticing prospect for criminals.
The outcomes can be disastrous, given the often prohibitive cost of replacing stolen or damaged assets, the difficulties associated with re-applying for funding following thefts, and the impacts on solar power outputs, which are collectively being used to replace fuelled alternatives in whole regions.
Our advice for any solar farm owner, whether they have an existing facility or are in the process of constructing a new farm, is to seek out independent, expert security advisory support in the first instance – with no assumptions that nominal efforts to conceal the presence of a solar farm or prevent trespassing with simple gates or fences will be effective.
What is the best Security for Solar Farms?
We often begin with a customised risk appraisal, which helps us to identify the access points, vulnerabilities, risks, and nature of security threats that pose the biggest challenge to your farm, land, or solar farm.
We can then devise strategic plans to mitigate or remove every element of risk.
The major obstacle for most solar farms is the lack of electricity infrastructure. Still, there are numerous high-performing solar-powered surveillance devices and battery-powered alternatives which are ideal for outdoor locations and can contribute to the site’s low or zero-carbon outputs.
1. Perimeter Intrusion Detection
Perimeter Intrusion Detection devices, or PIDs, are rapid-deployment next-generation units that create a virtual fence around a perimeter of any size and in any location. Fitted with a network of high-sensitivity sensors, PIDs can detect even subtle indications of illicit movement, such as an approaching off-road vehicle, a person walking, or vibrations indicative of an attempt to climb a fence.
With 360-degree coverage, these devices alert security teams, site owners, or emergency services immediately when there is a potential threat. They can also be monitored 24/7 by our experienced Alarm Receiving Centre (ARC) responders.
Installing PIDs, often alongside secure anti-climb fencing, concrete bollards or blocks, and physical safeguards, is an excellent way to boost security, augmented by high visibility signage warning intruders that the site is under continual protection.
2. Wireless CCTV for Solar Farms
Our inView CCTV towers have long been in high demand for clients in agricultural or isolated settings. They cover even huge areas of land, providing unbroken, intelligent coverage of the entirety of your solar farm, extending outward to every boundary.
AI-enabled CCTV doesn’t passively record but acts as a deterrent. It incorporates advanced functionality such as facial recognition and automatic vehicle number plate detection (ANPR) and can be configured with audible alarms and warnings—either prerecorded or transmitted by security teams en route.
As with PIDs, Clearway’s ARC team can monitor these CCTV surveillance devices around the clock. They are commonly used in conjunction with physical guarding and patrols, using infrared lighting technology to ensure that cameras are effective and operational at all times of day or night.
3. AI CCTV and Access Control
Once your site is protected by ongoing CCTV surveillance and secure perimeter devices, we might also suggest an access control solution, especially where a solar farm is largely unstaffed or where there are periods of time without any personnel on-site.
Automated access controls work by scanning the security credentials, facial characteristics, and biometrics of any person or number plate of any vehicle approaching the facility. Those recognised and pre-approved in your database are permitted entry, lifting electric gates or lowering bollards, whereas anybody who is unknown or unauthorised cannot enter.
These systems work best when there is a robust perimeter control solution. They can protect primary access points or be installed at gates and entrances around the solar farm, operating autonomously and without manual intervention.
Read more about our ANPR cameras and access control systems.
4. Protecting Solar Farm Perimeters
Depending on your location and most pressing risks, we can suggest optimal perimeter protection solutions, with security gates, turnstiles, electric fencing and physical barriers, which together provide a cohesive blanket of security protection across the whole solar farm.
Where solar farms have a vast footprint, and physical fencing is not possible across every part of the perimeter, geofencing can be an effective alternative.
However, robust automated security gates and commercial-grade electric fences may be cost-effective, reducing insurance premiums and integrating with CCTV monitoring and surveillance to ensure there are no vulnerabilities – and providing you with physical, technological and psychological barriers to intrusions.
If you’d like more advice about protecting your solar farm from intrusions and thefts, would like further information about any of the devices or approaches mentioned here, or want to schedule a site risk assessment, please contact Clearway at your earliest convenience.
