* EnerNoc to pay $820,000 fine, disgorge $656,806
* Company submitted data without conducting due diligence
Dec 17 (Reuters) – U.S. energy management company EnerNoc
Inc on Monday agreed to pay $820,000 to settle a
federal energy regulatory investigation into the company’s
market activity in New England.
The U.S. Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) said in
an order its Office of Enforcement investigated whether EnerNOC
and one of its units, Celerity Energy Partners San Diego,
submitted inaccurate data without exercising due diligence in
the New England demand response market.
Demand response is money paid to consumers of energy for
cutting back on their usage when requested by the regional power
grid operator. In New England, the grid operator is ISO New
England.
EnerNOC helps sign power users up for demand response and
other programs.
EnerNOC said the FERC investigation involved five demand
response assets in New England. The company said it has a
portfolio of 1,800 assets.
FERC’s Office of Enforcement determined that “none of
EnerNOC’s violations were willful, fraudulent, intentional, or
manipulative.”
“EnerNOC is committed to operating a high integrity
organization and we have made significant investments in our
data quality and compliance program in the past year to minimize
unintentional errors like these in the future,” Tim Healy,
EnerNOC Chairman and CEO, said in an email statement.
“We are pleased that the matter is behind us, has caused no
operational interruption to our business, and that the financial
impact has already been absorbed with no impact to our
guidance,” Healy said.
In addition to the civil penalty, EnerNOC also agreed to
disgorge $656,806, plus interest, and develop a compliance
program and submit to compliance monitoring.
The FERC Office of Enforcement started the investigation in
2012 following two referrals from ISO New England market
monitoring unit.
EnerNOC’s stock traded up a couple of cents at $12.27 Monday
afternoon.
