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Detection of Energy Theft, Especially “Marijuana Grow Houses” is Becoming a World Wide Challenge for Utilities
Published by R. G. Lucas in Marijuana Grow Houses • 1/4/2011 7:46:41 PM
On 3 January 2011 on the front page of the Wall Street Journal published an article, “Joint Effort: Dutch Utilities Help Police Smokeout Pot Farmers”. The author John Miller said, “Volt-hungry pot farms have been stealing hundreds of millions of dollars of electricity a year.”

The Netherlands is a relatively small country compared the United States, and the amount of stolen electricity in the United States used in “Marijuana Grow Houses” could absolutely dwarf the hundreds of millions of dollars of electricity stolen in the Netherlands each year.

Those electric utilities in the United States who believe they can accurately detect illegal bypassing of meters, especially after the installation of smart meters, have to be kidding themselves. Each year the thieves are smarter than the year before. Can you imagine the forethought and expense by an innovative, entrepreneurial, illegal marijuana producer (in the Netherlands) who was willing to go to the expense to put a shipping container underneath the swimming pool to make it more difficult for law enforcement to detect their illegal operation?

Electric utilities can no longer afford to overlook the potential of energy theft outside of the impoverished ghettos!