HomeIntel is a new residential energy efficiency program available at no cost to all PG&E customers[1], including renters and owners in single and multi-family homes. It complements other community energy efficiency program by focusing on reducing plug loads.
How does it work? Residents start by creating a Smart Audit account. Smart Audit is a web-based software app from Home Energy Analytics that analyzes a year of smart meter data to create a unique energy profile for every user. The energy profile highlights areas of energy waste and suggests measures to reduce it. Residents with particularly high idle loads are contacted by a HomeIntel energy coach. Idle loads are similar to Vampire or Always-on loads; you can learn more here. The coach will help them sleuth out their energy hogs and create an energy reduction plan, again free of charge. Solutions are usually very low cost and include such things as installing smart strips, finding appliances that are being left on all the time and putting them on timers, reconfiguring electronics so they really go “off”, etc. Smart Audit continues to automatically measure energy use by analyzing new smart data as it becomes available. Residents receive a monthly email report so they know if they are really saving. And they can always log back into their Smart Audit account to get more details. On average, residents in other community programs have seen a reduction of about 12.8% in their energy use.
Why HomeIntel now? Plug loads are contributing more and more to residential energy consumption and other programs haven’t focused on reducing the impact of plug loads that are already in homes. HomeIntel is also a new type of energy efficiency program using a pay for performance model. As the HomeIntel program manager, we will only be paid for the energy savings measured by meter data. This allows us to be flexible and creative when helping residents, and it also ensures ratepayer dollars are getting good value.
Interested in HomeIntel for your community? If you’re in PG&E’s service area, we’d love to help you achieve your sustainability goals. Help us get the word out and we can provide information on how many residents participate in HomeIntel and how much energy they save as a group. We’re happy to provide outreach blurbs for websites, newsletters, tweets, etc. We’d love to work with you!
Contact Lisa Schmidt at lisa@hea.com or 650-492-8029
[1] Smart Audit requires a year worth or energy data which usually means the resident has lived at their home for one year. They can enroll before one year and will receive an automatic notice when they can activate their Smart Audit account. Unfortunately, Smart Audit does not support homes with solar PV installed.
PG&E refers to Pacific Gas and Electric Company, a subsidiary of PG&E Corporation. These offerings are funded by California utility customers and administered under the auspices of the California Public Utility Commission. HEA offers energy efficiency programs on behalf of PG&E to its customers