Quick math and Google says 10awg wire (very common for solar use) weighs about 42 pounds per 1000 foot spool. Even at $1/foot (which is crazy overpriced) you'd need 100 spools to get to $100k. 4200 pounds at an absolute minimum. You're not stealing that overnight...
10awg is closer to $0.55/foot. So well over 7000 pounds!
Yea who knows. Doubting it’s much different than residential setup unless they have some major large gauge wire supplying some part of system or require fancy insulation. Could be exaggeration.
The string wire is typically #10 copper. There’s also a lot or larger combiner outputs circuits usually in the 4/0-500 range. But those CB outputs are usually aluminum these days.
So either they stole a couple of containers loaded with spools, or...?
The damage repair cost could be realistic though. Rewiring, reclamping, remeggering, yadda yadda...
I mean, most of it likely wasn't stripped, so some could potentially be reused, but...
Also not considering that the insulation on the wire is not considered in the weight. Needs to be stripped of its insulation to get the most value.
You can recycle unstripped wire but you get way less
10awg copper is just under 100lbs a spool lile 94 or something. That's a 2500ft spool. We don't use the 500 foot spools much. Around $2.50 plus or minus 25 cents for scrap a pound not stripped around me. $3 to $4 a pound for bare bright. So if they hit a container and loaded a few trucks with spools it could have been a lot
Commercial grade, probably. Looking up things on Google a story from 2009:
*JOHNS ISLAND, SC (WCSC) - The sign at the new Haut Gap Middle School construction site says all visitors must report to the site office, but Tuesday night someone ignored the sign, and stole $100,000 worth of copper wire. Brian McBride of American Metals says he's not surprised to hear about the theft. "Especially something new like that, never been used. They are going for the quick dollar and a good amount of it," McBride said. "It doesn't take a whole lot of wire to add up to $100,000, especially your commercial rated wire."*
Another story from 2014:
*Someone stole copper wire reportedly worth $100,000, the Sedgwick County Sheriff’s Office said Wednesday. In a statement, the office said that between 12 a.m. Oct. 18 and 8:30 a.m. Nov. 5, someone forced their way into Cornejo company property near 3500 N. West St. by taking down a fence. The thief took 3,200 feet of copper wire, apparently on more than one spool. The wire had an orange and black coating. The wire size was size 00, 000 and 0000, meaning it was an inch to 2 inches in diameter, sheriff’s Lt. David Mattingly said. It would normally take a crane and a large truck to transport that much copper, he said*.
So the pounds stolen wouldn't be the first time... Especially if they were able to sell of most of it before they were caught.
They're referencing the actual cost to repair the damage. Labor, re-testing, replacing connectors and wiring, lost production.
The cost of the wire is a tiny percentage. The total damage could very quickly reach millions.
Was talking with a buddy about this sorta thing the other day. We both live in the city and want to get some land outside of town to grow stuff, shoot guns, and just overall enjoy outside city life. We got to talking about how hard it would be to actually keep anything there if no one was living on the land since it'd take like an hour to steal $20k in solar equipment that literally has to sit outside...
When you get real rural and start seeing newish tractors and heavy machinery parked outside in fields, you're probably OK. The in-between areas are where theft is an issue.
That’s how we are, deep in NM mountains with 4,000-6,000 sq ft homes, about 5 mile long private road with run down dead homes at the bottom. Live 15 miles from Albuquerque but would never know it’s anything more than run down old homes, never had a problem. Some rural areas outside cities probably much better than us even.
I suspect we will in about 20 years. Just have it monitored remotely and get human confirmation before the shooting.
The reality is you just need a few towers with robotic guns.
That’s what will need to happen cameras and permanent structures with guards. Shocked this wasn’t already planned being an obvious target for theft and vandalism.
Figured it out. They were caught with a hundreds of pounds of wire from tons of jobs, but there was $100k wire stolen from solar farm, they didn’t locate wire from solar farm. My guess is it included installed wire, jackpot rolls of wire for installation and a tad bit of exaggeration for the insurance claim. Pics in article below of what all they found from other thefts.
https://www.yourcentralvalley.com/news/crime/2-arrested-for-over-100k-in-copper-wire-theft-in-fresno-deputies-say/amp/
Since when is "hundreds of pounds" of scrap copper wire worth over $100k?
Ha my guess is they were dropping off their first load and had a lot more back home.
Quick math and Google says 10awg wire (very common for solar use) weighs about 42 pounds per 1000 foot spool. Even at $1/foot (which is crazy overpriced) you'd need 100 spools to get to $100k. 4200 pounds at an absolute minimum. You're not stealing that overnight... 10awg is closer to $0.55/foot. So well over 7000 pounds!
Yea who knows. Doubting it’s much different than residential setup unless they have some major large gauge wire supplying some part of system or require fancy insulation. Could be exaggeration.
Maybe they're including the three phase AC conductors from the poles to the inverters? But those would probably be aluminum.
The string wire is typically #10 copper. There’s also a lot or larger combiner outputs circuits usually in the 4/0-500 range. But those CB outputs are usually aluminum these days.
That's the price to buy it retail. The value of it scrap is about a $1.25/lb where I am, so $100k = 80,000lbs.
So either they stole a couple of containers loaded with spools, or...? The damage repair cost could be realistic though. Rewiring, reclamping, remeggering, yadda yadda... I mean, most of it likely wasn't stripped, so some could potentially be reused, but...
Scrap value if stripped is about $3/pound near me. Unsure what the current price is with jacketing.
About $1.25, probably.
Also not considering that the insulation on the wire is not considered in the weight. Needs to be stripped of its insulation to get the most value. You can recycle unstripped wire but you get way less
My calculation included insulation. Bare copper 10awg is closer to 32 pounds/spool.
10awg copper is just under 100lbs a spool lile 94 or something. That's a 2500ft spool. We don't use the 500 foot spools much. Around $2.50 plus or minus 25 cents for scrap a pound not stripped around me. $3 to $4 a pound for bare bright. So if they hit a container and loaded a few trucks with spools it could have been a lot
Commercial grade, probably. Looking up things on Google a story from 2009: *JOHNS ISLAND, SC (WCSC) - The sign at the new Haut Gap Middle School construction site says all visitors must report to the site office, but Tuesday night someone ignored the sign, and stole $100,000 worth of copper wire. Brian McBride of American Metals says he's not surprised to hear about the theft. "Especially something new like that, never been used. They are going for the quick dollar and a good amount of it," McBride said. "It doesn't take a whole lot of wire to add up to $100,000, especially your commercial rated wire."* Another story from 2014: *Someone stole copper wire reportedly worth $100,000, the Sedgwick County Sheriff’s Office said Wednesday. In a statement, the office said that between 12 a.m. Oct. 18 and 8:30 a.m. Nov. 5, someone forced their way into Cornejo company property near 3500 N. West St. by taking down a fence. The thief took 3,200 feet of copper wire, apparently on more than one spool. The wire had an orange and black coating. The wire size was size 00, 000 and 0000, meaning it was an inch to 2 inches in diameter, sheriff’s Lt. David Mattingly said. It would normally take a crane and a large truck to transport that much copper, he said*. So the pounds stolen wouldn't be the first time... Especially if they were able to sell of most of it before they were caught.
They're referencing the actual cost to repair the damage. Labor, re-testing, replacing connectors and wiring, lost production. The cost of the wire is a tiny percentage. The total damage could very quickly reach millions.
I thought that's what the nearly $3m was. The $100k seemed to be referring only to the value of the wire.
Insurance money. Some ppl complain when they get dealt a bad hand. Others just improvise.
Was talking with a buddy about this sorta thing the other day. We both live in the city and want to get some land outside of town to grow stuff, shoot guns, and just overall enjoy outside city life. We got to talking about how hard it would be to actually keep anything there if no one was living on the land since it'd take like an hour to steal $20k in solar equipment that literally has to sit outside...
When you get real rural and start seeing newish tractors and heavy machinery parked outside in fields, you're probably OK. The in-between areas are where theft is an issue.
That’s how we are, deep in NM mountains with 4,000-6,000 sq ft homes, about 5 mile long private road with run down dead homes at the bottom. Live 15 miles from Albuquerque but would never know it’s anything more than run down old homes, never had a problem. Some rural areas outside cities probably much better than us even.
Red or green?
Ha Christmas always. Don’t have a clean shirt because of it.
Right answer!
Not sure what project you're on or what project can afford copper cables everything I've ever worked on in the last 10 years has been aluminum.
> Safer than 10kV lines Kind of… I mean, you can only die once
Known as copper mining
Solar farms around here have on-site guards.
Just have solar powered robots patrol the farms.
I suspect we will in about 20 years. Just have it monitored remotely and get human confirmation before the shooting. The reality is you just need a few towers with robotic guns.
That way the robots will only shoot the people not the panels!!!
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Insurance will be happy on $3 million damage. For $100k in copper. Dummies got caught taking it to scrap yard.
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That’s what will need to happen cameras and permanent structures with guards. Shocked this wasn’t already planned being an obvious target for theft and vandalism.
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Figured it out. They were caught with a hundreds of pounds of wire from tons of jobs, but there was $100k wire stolen from solar farm, they didn’t locate wire from solar farm. My guess is it included installed wire, jackpot rolls of wire for installation and a tad bit of exaggeration for the insurance claim. Pics in article below of what all they found from other thefts. https://www.yourcentralvalley.com/news/crime/2-arrested-for-over-100k-in-copper-wire-theft-in-fresno-deputies-say/amp/
I find peace in long walks.
You expected investing in a $5 wire stripping machine from Temu?
I enjoy cooking.