Spanish energy operator Endesa catches 29 cannabis farms in Malaga province stealing electricity equivalent to 10,000 households' needs

With an average of 13 incidents per day, this is the equivalent to the average monthly energy needs of 73,500 households.

These figures do not include the joint operation the electricity company and the National Police carried out in Malaga city's La Palmilla district in July, where the electricity supply to 450 homes was cut off after around 80 per cent of illegal connections were detected .

Endesa describes these operations as part of a fight against a problem, "which poses a serious risk to the physical safety of people living in these areas, as well as affecting the quality of the electricity supply, continually disrupted by grid overload resulting from widespread fraud".

As Endesa points out, the situation exacerbates when this fraud stems from cannabis plantations.

In the first six months of the year, Endesa opened 29 fraud investigations in the province of Malaga linked to this activity: that is, more than one case a week of illegal connections.

This practice has resulted in the theft of more than three million kilowatt-hours in six months, equivalent to the needs of more than 10,000 households. This accounts for 14 per cent of the energy stolen in Malaga province.

"Indoor cannabis farms cause the electricity grid to become overloaded, affecting all local residents, as a single cannabis farm in a property can consume as much electricity as 80 homes at the same time, 24 hours a day. The electricity infrastructure cannot cope with this energy demand, which is on a par with that of industrial areas, and ends up becoming overloaded, leading to serious problems for the safety of the installations and the power supply," Endesa explains.

Malaga city has the highest volume of electricity fraud relative to its population. In the first half of the year, it recorded 686 cases of fraud, involving 4.8 million kWh of electricity stolen. Of these, six were linked to cannabis cultivation, accounting for 400,000 kWh of stolen electricity. Marbella and Vélez-Málaga follow, with 171 and 154 cases, respectively.

Endesa considers collaboration with the state's law enforcement agencies to be "essential" and supports them when they carry out operations to dismantle cannabis plantations.

"Following one such operation by the security forces in Andalucía this year, it is clear that the excessive energy demand from cannabis plantations drops dramatically at the time of the police operation, as 40 cannabis plantations were dismantled during that operation, more than 5,000 plants were seized and 30 power supplies were cut off due to illegal connections," Endesa says.

Once the police have dismantled the illegal connections, the strain on the grid drops and supply problems disappear. In areas of widespread fraud, Endesa has gone so far as to triple the power supply to counteract this problem.

"When the connection is cut off but the illegal installation is not dismantled, the problem re-emerges shortly afterwards," Endesa sources point out.

In light of this situation, Endesa is "upgrading its electricity infrastructure, installing new transformer stations, upgrading existing ones and laying new cables", with the aim of mitigating the consequences of widespread fraud stemming mainly from cannabis plantations.

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