{"id":867456,"date":"2026-08-25T04:28:14","date_gmt":"2026-08-25T04:28:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/867456\/"},"modified":"2026-08-25T04:28:14","modified_gmt":"2026-08-25T04:28:14","slug":"victorian-authorities-accuse-royal-one-of-fraud-related-to-energy-efficiency-scheme","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/867456\/","title":{"rendered":"Victorian authorities accuse Royal One of fraud related to energy efficiency scheme"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph___QITb\">A Victorian business business has been accused of submitting doctored photos and falsifying customer details to claim certificates for energy efficiency projects.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph___QITb\">Royal One Pty Ltd has had its Victorian Energy Upgrades (VEU) program accreditation suspended by the state&#8217;s Essential Services Commission.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph___QITb\">The business promoted itself as a provider of energy efficient air conditioning, hot water and solar and battery power on its website.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph___QITb\">The commission&#8217;s fraud taskforce said some photos submitted by Royal One as evidence of energy efficiency upgrades had been digitally altered.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph___QITb\">The commission also said phone audits of Royal One&#8217;s listed consumers provided further evidence of attempted fraud.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph___QITb\">The VEU program is an energy efficiency scheme designed to help people lower their energy bills by increasing efficiency.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.abc.net.au\/news\/2026-08-23\/victoria-energy-supply-labor-coalition-election\/107065912\" data-component=\"FullBleedLink\" class=\"RelatedCard_link__rsgR9 FullBleedLink_root__lTw_U interactive_focusContext__yRhc_ interactive_defaults__AKxUU FullBleedLink_showVisited__g3Xvz\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Labor and the Coalition offer two very different plans for Victoria&#8217;s energy supply<\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"Typography_base__sj2RP RelatedCard_synopsis__cFwMW Typography_sizeMobile14__u7TGe Typography_lineHeightMobile20___U7Vr Typography_regular__WeIG6 Typography_colourInherit__dfnUx\" data-component=\"Typography\">The Labor government has signed a deal for $7.6 billion powerline, while the Coalition has hardened its stance to block the project.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph___QITb\">Accredited businesses that carry out the energy efficiency improvements can earn certificates which they can then sell to energy retailers.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph___QITb\">Royal One&#8217;s VEU accreditation expired shortly after it was suspended and the business has not applied to renew it.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph___QITb\">Essential Services Commission chairperson and commissioner Gerard Brody said the commission was alerted to Royal One&#8217;s alleged fraud.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph___QITb\">&#8220;The taskforce uses data, tip-offs and other intelligence to identify areas of unusual activity and in this case, uncovered what we allege to be deliberate and fraudulent conduct from Royal One,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph___QITb\">&#8220;Immediately suspending Royal One directly affected their ability to generate income from the VEU program.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The message is clear \u2014 deliberately breaking the rules puts your business at risk.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph___QITb\">Royal One has been contacted for comment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A Victorian business business has been accused of submitting doctored photos and falsifying customer details to claim certificates&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":867457,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[64,63,99,9540,436421,265985,9704,158398,436420],"class_list":["post-867456","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-business","tag-energy-efficiency","tag-energy-upgrades","tag-essential-services-commission","tag-fake","tag-false","tag-royal-one"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/867456","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=867456"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/867456\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/867457"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=867456"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=867456"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=867456"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}