POT GROWERS STEALING $100M IN ELECTRICITY

B.C. Hydro Studies Found 500 Gigawatt Hours Stolen Each Year

British Columbia marijuana growers steal about $100 million in
electricity every year, B.C. Hydro officials said Thursday.

"And it might well be higher than that," said Fiona Taylor, B.C.
Hydro's director of smart metering and infrastructure.

In 2006, the public utility commissioned three independent studies,
which found 500 gigawatt hours a year were being stolen from the grid
by people with growing operations, she said.

That study has been refreshed, said Taylor, and new estimates show 850
gigawatt hours a year are now being stolen.

"That's enough electricity to power 77,000 homes a year," she
said.

"We're estimating that theft at $100 million a year, which is roughly
the same as a 3% increase for all customers," she said.

The company is fighting back with the new $930-million smart meter
program, which will be introduced over the next couple of years, said
Taylor. B.C. Hydro officials hope this will combat much of the theft.

"Today we are operating blind. This system will allow us to follow the
flow of electricity from point to point. We will be able to see at a
macro-level what is happening.

"We'll be able to see how much came into a line, we'll know what the
residential meter reads. So we will be able to detect any anomalies,
and special software will detect if there's been a theft from a power
pole," she said.

She said the business plan for introducing the meters shows that B.C.
Hydro will recover $1.5 billion in savings over 20 years.

"We expect to break even on the cost after eight years," said
Taylor.

As for criticism the new metering system could be hijacked by hackers,
she said B.C. Hydro has employed the best cyber-security organizations
in the world to ensure that doesn't happen.

"We've even employed hackers to try to break in," she said.