Raiders escape with £100,000-worth of solar panels

The raid at the Solar Green PV premises at Hillside Court on the Barbot Hall Industrial Estate happened overnight on Sunday November 20.

The firm’s boss John Glasby said CCTV footage showed thieves making four or five trips to the unit during the break-in between 9pm and 2.30pm.

He said they were stolen to order because of the current demand for solar panels following the government’s decision to cut the clean energy cashback scheme.

Thousands of home owners have been rushing to get solar panels installed before December 12 when the level of “feed-in tariff” subsidies will fall from 43.3p per kilowatt hour of power to 21p.

Mr Glasby said: “The solar industry was just trundling along nicely but from the government’s announcement everything went crazy.

“They just make these statements which have such an affect on the industry and don’t think things through.

“So there has been a shortage of everything. We will not let our customers down and we have already secured replacement stocks and we have not missed an installation since it happened, but we are very keen to get those panels back.

“That’s why I am offering £25,000 as a reward for information leading to the safe return of the panels.”

Officers believe a white LDV Maxus van was used in the theft.

Anyone with information should call South Yorkshire Police on 101 quoting incident number 139 of Monday, 21 November.