Electricity theft in Spain over the past five years equals annual needs of Barcelona and Seville

Electricity stolen over the past five years equals the annual needs of more than one million homes - roughly the same as the combined demand of Barcelona and Seville. Data public energy giant Endesa collected in 2025 shows the scale of the problem: 72,700 fraud cases uncovered in a single year or close to 200 incidents a day.

According to the energy company, this surge is not due to energy poverty, but rather to the rise of organised crime. Indoor marijuana cultivation now accounts for 26 per cent of all recovered electricity. Its impact is disproportionate: a single grow operation can consume the same amount of energy as 80 homes.

This places heavy strain on the grid in already pressured areas of Catalonia and Andalucía In some neighbourhoods, actual consumption runs up to five times higher than the legally contracted supply. More than half of the stolen electricity comes from industrial units, large businesses and cannabis farms, Endesa says. Around 40 per cent is linked to tampered legal connections, while only about five per cent involves small domestic supplies.

Until now, public prosecution has been criticising Spain's legal framework as insufficient, particularly compared with countries such as Germany or Italy, where these offences can lead to prison sentences. Prosecutors state that the lighter penalties have acted as an incentive for international criminal networks.

Endesa points to "a comparatively more lenient penal framework" in Spain to combat this crime, which has had "very limited deterrent effect", although it welcomes the recent tightening of penalties for electricity fraud linked to cannabis cultivation.

The company refers to the recent entry into force of a law on repeat offending, which amends the penal code and introduces an aggravated offence for this type of crime.