Damaged solar panel photos falsely linked to South Korea monsoon
- This article is more than one year old.
- Published on July 27, 2023 at 09:25
- 4 min read
- By SHIM Kyu-Seok, AFP South Korea
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"Landslide during rainy season broke Chinese-made solar panels installed as part of green policy," reads a Korean-language Facebook post shared on July 15.
"If you have eyes, Moon Jae-in, look at this," it adds, referring to South Korea's ex-president who pledged to push for carbon neutrality by ramping up the country's supply of renewable energy.
Seoul reportedly quadrupled the supply of solar power under Moon's term, but this expansion was met with accusations that solar farms increase the risk of landslides.
"The country picked the wrong president, and now there are landslides across the nation," reads another Facebook post which shared a similar photo of damaged solar panels on July 16.
The photos were shared in a false context after at least 40 people were killed in torrential rain that hit South Korea in July, sparking flooding and landslides.
While flooding is common in South Korea's summer monsoon period, scientists say climate change has made such weather events more extreme and more frequent (archived link).
Similar Facebook posts falsely linking the solar panels to the monsoon were shared here, here and here.
Damaged by landslide
The first photo was published by South Korean news organisation News1 on August 11, 2020 in a report about solar farms damaged by landslides (archived link).
"A solar power facility lies damaged by a landslide caused by heavy rains in Jechon city's Daerang-dong in North Chungcheong province, on the afternoon of the 11th," the photo caption says.
Below is a screenshot comparison between the photo shared on Facebook (left) and as it appears in the News1 report (right):
News1 published various photos of the damaged solar farm in Jechon here, here and here (archived links here, here and here).
Meanwhile, the second photo was published in a Yonhap News report on August 11, 2020 (archived link).
The photo caption says: "Solar facility damaged by a landslide in Daerang-dong in North Chungcheong province's Jechon city on the afternoon of the 8th."
Below is a screenshot comparison of the second photo on Facebook (left) and the one from the Yonhap report (right):
Google Maps imagery confirms the photos were taken at the site of the solar facility at the village of Daerang-dong in Jechon.
Solar farms
South Korea's Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy said in a press release on July 19 that it received 38 reports of damage at solar energy facilities across the country following heavy rains but that none of the cases involved landslides (archived link).
Most cases of damage involved solar facilities submerged in floodwater, while others involved grid connection failures or components that were washed away, the ministry said.
During Moon's term, rules about where solar arrays could be installed were strengthened in 2018 as a result of public concern about the safety of panels installed on steep mountainsides (archived link).
Experts remain divided about the relationship between solar arrays and landslides.
Some experts like Kyungnam University's geotechnical engineering Professor Ha Ik-soo, previously told AFP there was a lack of data to support the claim landslides mostly occur in areas with solar power facilities (archived link).
Others, like former civil engineering professor Lee Soo-gon, said the displacement of vegetation in mountainous areas where solar arrays are installed made water runoffs more likely, contributing to a greater risk of landslides (archived link).
AFP previously debunked a similar post that shared a photo of a damaged solar farm out of context, which also placed the blame on Moon's solar policy.
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