California utility giant Pacific Gas & Electric is proposing a wide-ranging energy efficiency plan that would help customers save more than $2 billion over the next seven years, the company said.
PG&E’s submission to the California Public Utilities Commission announced this week commits to long-term development of energy efficiency innovations as well as pushing for improvement to the state’s building codes and appliance standards. The nation’s commercial buildings alone contribute to nearly 40 percent of emissions in the U.S., according to reports.
The plan covering energy efficiency programs from 2024 to 2031 includes proposed equipment incentives and financing programs, as well as support for all-electric homes to cut carbon emissions from heating and cooking generation. PG&E wants to use it’s EE plan to reduce about 35 million metric tons of CO2 by 2031.
“This proposal thoughtfully supports customer affordability and embraces a decarbonized future by providing customers with a variety of energy efficiency tools and solutions. Our programs are focused on our triple bottom line of supporting the customers we are privileged to serve, healing the planet, and driving California’s prosperity. All the initiatives outlined in the EE plan are done with one focus in mind: to better serve our customers,” said Aaron August, PG&E’s Vice President of Business Development and Customer Engagement.
Achieving that bottom line does carry its own costs for customers. PG&E forecasts that its EE plan will cut electric bills but raise natural gas bills with some $1.4 billion in rates collected over four years through 2027.
Other parts of the proposed program include workforce education on energy efficiency technology. PG&E also will support customers in high fire threat districts by pairing EE initiatives with backup generation and microgrids.
The utility serves close to 16 million customers in northern and central California. It has scores of large-scale commercial and industrial customers within that service territory.
