For one of the 'most brazen’ frauds seen by FERC, the agency ordered American Efficient to pay $1.1B. (Utility Dive)
The scheme: The energy efficiency aggregator 1) bought appliance sales data from retailers like Home Depot and Walmart 2) calculated how much electricity the products would save and 3) bid those savings into PJM and MISO capacity markets. Over a decade, American Efficient cleared >20 GW and collected roughly $515M in capacity payments. The issue? The company never actually handled these resources…it just claimed credit for efficiency that was already happening.
‘Money-for-Nothing’: FERC Chair Laura Swett said the fraud “profoundly disrupted the organized capacity markets and ultimately increased costs for ordinary Americans.” AE will pay a $722M fine, plus return “unjust profits” and interest totaling around $400M to PJM and $2M to MISO.