Price of copper wire has gone insane!

[Soul Safari]

Coming from Essex (UK) and living near the biggest 'traveller' sites (Dale Farm) in the country we have our fair share of precious metals disappear on a daily basis. Our local train station has been shut for two weekends on the bounce cos they had nicked 200 meters of 'overhead' power lines!

Lead, copper pipe, drain covers and metal fences are all targets.

If it's not nailed down, it GOES!

[dark skies]

last week in lincoln I took a generator out to a housing estate as metal theives had stolen 1.8 km's of overhead cabling, was talking to the line engineer and he said its not the first time its happened

[sygh]

Posted by Lazlo (here)
Commodity prices have had a huge impact on solar farm construction. Enough so that contracts and pricing are not applicable for modelling only months later. Copper prices have gone up so much that engineers are now specifying "gasp! The Horror!" aluminum for string wiring.

well, here come the fires.

[Anchor]

I had to lay a 70m cable from my distribution box to a slab where a generator shed will be, it was 16mm² conductors; you can imagine this was not cheap.

The part of the run outside the house is 600mm underground, inside expensive impact resistant conduit, thanks to the Australian Wiring standards - you'd have to be pretty focused to steal it - LOL. It was around A$12 per metre, just for the cable. So, yes, I agree copper prices are very high!