Pacific Gas and Electric outlines plan to continue decarbonization, other efforts through 2031
Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E) submitted a new Energy Efficiency (EE) plan last week to the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC), proposing $2.1 billion of benefits to customers, equity efforts, long-term development of carbon neutrality measures, and more.
The plan focuses on three areas:
- Customer service: providing a wide array of energy-saving solutions to address customer needs, help reduce energy use and save money. Participation in energy efficiency programs will become easier and more personalized customer experiences will encourage engagement.
- Environmental Stewardship: The plan pledges to remove 35 million metric tons of lifetime CO2 emissions by 2031, support all-electric and electric-ready new homes and buildings, and incentivize and finance new equipment. Further, EE will focus PG&E on educating customers and workers, increasing training, and advocating for improved appliance standards and building codes throughout California.
- Local support: expands customer access with more equity-based programs, supports customer resiliency in High Fire-Threat Districts with a mix of energy efficiency solutions, backup generation, and microgrids, and promotes new workers with greater education and training.
“This proposal thoughtfully supports customer affordability and embraces a decarbonized future by providing customers with a variety of energy efficiency tools and solutions,” Aaron August, PG&E’s vice president of Business Development and Customer Engagement, said. “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.”
PG&E, which serves more than 16 million people in northern and central California on its own, predicts the plan will bring a small decrease to its customers’ electric bills but a small increase in their gas bills. If approved as is, the plan would allow PG&E to collect $1.4 billion in rates from 2024 through 2027, including costs to be collected on behalf of community choice aggregators and regional energy networks’ individual EE programs.
