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.

In 2024, utilities disconnected US households from electricity over 13 million times. Plus, they sent around 95M final notices to residential electricity customers that year. These figures come from the EIA’s first-ever national residential utility disconnections survey, which captured electricity data directly from utilities with a 93.5% response rate. This offers a far clearer picture than prior estimates, which were extrapolated from fewer than half of states.

The details: Southern states dominated both in volume and rate. Texas topped the list with 3M shutoffs in 2024, while Oklahoma had the highest average monthly disconnection rate (affecting 2.53% of all customers). As for timing, power shutoffs peaked in September and October, but some states with extreme heat protections were able to reduce seasonal spikes.

Energy Sec. Wright and Interior Sec. Burgum convened a call Thursday with CEOs from Exxon, Chevron, Occidental, Continental, and others urging them to drill more to bring prices down. The industry response? Producers have so far resisted, citing price volatility.

During a House budget hearing the day before, Wright said the DOE had considered a possible Iran conflict’s impacts on energy since he took his seat. He also claimed prices aren’t that high, all things considered (meanwhile, gas is above $4/gal, and crude oil remains above $90/barrel). Also during the hearing: He acknowledged “mistakes” in DOE award terminations, offered moderate support for solar, and cheered on permitting reform.

Why the spike? State law requires transmission providers to report all large and medium loads in their pipeline, including projects simply discussed with a utility. And data centers alone account for 228 GW of submitted large loads by 2032. 

Sanity check: ERCOT quickly told the PUCT it doesn't trust the figure. Strip out the pipeline numbers…and ERCOT’s base forecast tops out at around 111 GW. Now, ERCOT is asking the PUCT to let it adjust the forecast under a new rule (which allows revisions backed by historical realization rates).

The company is setting a target price range of $16–$19/share. So far, investors have poured roughly $1.8B into X-energy, per PitchBook. Amazon, its biggest backer, led a $500M funding round and has pledged to purchase up to 5 GW of the startup’s nuclear power by 2039.

The tech: X-energy’s reactor is a high-temp gas-cooled design that uses TRISO fuel—uranium placed in spheres of ceramic and carbon, cooled by helium gas. No SMR startup has actually built a power plant yet, but several are working toward a July 4 criticality deadline set by the White House.

The MA, NY, and CA projects—run by Ocean Winds, a joint venture between EDP and Engie—have been scaled back to skeleton staffing. EDP CEO Miguel Stilwell d'Andrade noted the company was "lucky" it hadn't started construction.

Zoom out: EDP has invested around $17B in North America, and ranks among the top five US renewable operators with 12+ GW of capacity across wind, solar, and storage. Stilwell d'Andrade said the company still sees strong US power demand growth.

The context: In January, President Trump axed grants providing $350M for low-income households to set up solar and battery systems in Puerto Rico (which has the least reliable grid in the country). Now, over 200 organizations demand that the White House and Puerto Rico Gov. Jenniffer González help the 12K families left in limbo as the May 9 program deadline—and hurricane season—approaches.

Home solar + storage adoption has exploded on the island since Hurricane Maria devastated the already vulnerable grid in 2017. But with a 40%+ poverty rate, many families can’t pay for solar. Gov. González said the federal money is expected to be redirected toward grid repairs instead. The DOE website says some families will still receive systems…but hasn't said who or when.