The growing interest in solar energy is spawning a black market for solar panels.

Thieves have stolen copper cabling for years. Now they are turning their attention to the PV solar panels that convert sunlight into electricity. In fact, stolen panels are turning up on eBay and Craigslist, according to a recent story in the New York Times.

So far, the problem seems to be limited. Most of the media coverage has cited incidents involving thefts from homes. But that doesn’t mean the utilities are exempt. It is probably only a matter of time before thieves target panels from some of the large solar farms being deployed around the country.

And even thought copper thieves have been known to operate in the heart of busy cities, one thing that will probably aid the thieves in their solar thefts is that the truly large-scale solar farms are located in sparsely populated areas. (That’s because they need a lot of square footage to produce commercial quantities of electricity.)

What’s the solution?

In Europe where solar adoption (particularly for home owners) is more common than in the U.S., alarms systems are frequently used.

Certainly alarms would be a good first line of defense here, too. But other techniques should also be considered. For instance, utilities have used video cameras for years to keep an eye on equipment in remote substations. And some companies are currently piloting next generation video systems that incorporate more sophisticated image analysis algorithms. These new systems offer improvements over motion detection systems, for example, in that they can tell the difference between a person approaching an area or say a dog running by or trash blowing by.

Perhaps one way to nip the solar panel theft issue in the bud would be to adopt video surveillance to monitor solar farms.