How PG&E scaled home energy reports into wide-ranging energy reduction and bill savings
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- PG&E scaled Home Energy Reports from just over one million customers to approximately 3.2 million households around 2020, and between 2020 and 2023 the program generated roughly 50 percent of all energy savings in its energy efficiency portfolio.
- Since launching in 2011, the program has produced approximately 2.26 terawatt-hours of energy savings, avoided roughly 1.55 million metric tons of carbon emissions, and delivered an estimated $1.16 billion in customer bill savings, per PG&E Senior Manager Michael Burger.
- More than 860,000 low- and moderate-income households receive Home Energy Reports, a figure PG&E highlights as evidence that the low-cost, high-reach format supports affordability and equity goals.
- PG&E has evolved Home Energy Reports into what Burger calls a Continuous Energy Feedback platform, adding tools like Bill Forecast Alerts and Peak Day Alerts, the latter with roughly 500,000 customers participating in voluntary load reduction during high-demand periods.
- PG&E launched Business Energy Reports covering approximately 100,000 small businesses in sectors such as retail, restaurants, and small agriculture, with plans to pilot targeted messaging aimed at customers likely to replace HVAC equipment with heat pumps.
- The interview was conducted in connection with a new ACEEE report examining how behavior-based energy efficiency programs are adapting to current affordability and clean energy challenges, with Oracle providing the technology, analytics, and platform capabilities behind PG&E's delivery.
Why it matters: PG&E's results show that a low-cost behavioral program can deliver half of a major utility's portfolio energy savings and $1.16 billion in customer bill reductions, suggesting that HERs offer a scalable, equity-friendly template as California pushes toward electrification and grid reliability.
