In Spain, the electricity grid was hacked to power cannabis plantations

In the early morning of July 18, two and a half months after the massive power outage caused by a power surge that left millions of Spaniards in the dark in April, the substation in Pinos Puente, a small farming town located at the foot of the Sierra Elvira mountains near Granada, caught fire. According to the electricity company Endesa, one of the main players in the Spanish energy sector, the cause was illegal connections to supply electricity to intensive cannabis plantations – the consumption and private cultivation of which in small quantities are not prohibited in the country.

The case is not new. In November 2024, the Guardia Civil had already dismantled cannabis plantations in 23 homes in this rural Andalusian municipality, illegally connected to the electricity grid. In total, nearly 17,000 plants had been identified. With their fans and fluorescent lights running around the clock, each indoor cannabis plant installation of 80 square meters can consume as much as an entire building of 80 homes, and some buildings as much as a hospital, assures the company which published, on Thursday, August 7, an alarming half-yearly report concerning electricity fraud linked to drug mafias.

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