According to the annual Emerging Markets Smart Grid: Outlook 2015 study by the Northeast Group, LLC, the world loses US$89.3 billion annually to electricity theft, with the top 50 emerging market countries losing $58.7 billion annually compared with $30.6bn in the rest of the world, including the largest industrialized economies.

In one of the more widely publicized cases recently, B.C. Hydro in Canada estimates that it was losing about 850 gigawatt hours per year due to electricity theft, that equates to more than $500 million in electricity, according to the company’s website.

B.C. Hydro has encouraged its customers, which eventually end up footing the bill for the lost electricity, to stay vigilant and has devoted a website page explaining the dangers of stealing electricity: