Released: March 24, 2008

Free ride for some pay-to-save energy users

Source: Paul Davidson, USA Today

Cheaters are pocketing millions of dollars a year from increasingly popular utility programs that pay consumers and businesses to conserve energy, industry officials say. Businesses that don’t cut their power usage at all reap windfalls. Misspent money is an expense all utility customers bear.

“It’s possible to do nothing, literally, and get paid,” says Joseph Bowring, monitor of PJM Interconnection, which manages the power grid in the Mid-Atlantic and parts of the Midwest and Southeast.

Some free riders are gaming the system, but many others simply benefit from loosely written standards, officials say.

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