A Maine utility wants to be an ally with law enforcement in the crackdown on illegal marijuana grow operations — if it can overcome privacy concerns.

Operators of illegal marijuana grow enterprises hidden inside rural homes in Maine don’t have to worry much about prying neighbors. But their staggering electric bills may give rise to a new snitch.

An electric utility made an unusual proposal to help law enforcement target these illicit operations, which are being investigated for ties to transnational crime. Critics, however, worry the move would violate customers’ privacy.

More than a dozen states that legalized marijuana have seen a spike in illegal marijuana grow operations that utilize massive amounts of electricity. And Maine’s Versant Power has been receiving subpoenas — sometimes for 50 locations at a time — from law enforcement, said Arrian Myrick-Stockdell, corporate counsel. It’d be far more efficient, he suggested to utility regulators, to flip the script and allow electric utilities to report their suspicions to law enforcement.

  • @ccunning
    20•1 month ago

    Residential energy consumption is predictable. Hidden grow houses are not.

    I would think grow ops would have very consistent predictable usage.

    • @The_v
      3•1 month ago

      They use a significantly more electricity than the average residential home. However it’s tiny amount compared to the average business/factory usage. It will hardly cause a blip on the network.

      Say they use 20 watts of LED lights per sq ft per hour. With 2000sq ft of grow space over a 12 hour photoperiod that’s 480KWh per day.

      The average home uses around 30kwh with 50% of that for climate control. So an additional 15KWh per day for climate control.

      Dedicated grow houses are looking at using around 500KWh per day. It will definitely stand out on the billing. They are using 16-17 times more energy than other homes.

      • @ccunning
        6•1 month ago

        Yes, they use a lot more but it should be quite predictable.

        I still don’t see why the power company would want to report consistent predictably high consumers of their product.

        • @[email protected]
          1•1 month ago

          Average community has x number of houses

          Average house uses y number of power

          Power lines buried and maintained by the utility are able to handle x * y power, grow houses fuck this up. An area being used for commercial / industrial use but zoned for residential is going to make it harder to plan that piece too.

          I’m with you that the idea of ratting out someone who may pay you more money is a bad idea but also let me posit the idea to you that utilities are often required by law to give a certain amount of time of grace period on delinquent bills to residential customers and that could potentially be gamed by folks who are just growing something somewhere harvesting then moving the operation somewhere else.

          It’s really quite easy to think of a myriad of reasons, none of them to me are a good reason to involve police though … fucking narcs