Pacific Gas and Electric provides its commercial, industrial and agricultural customers with Integrated Demand Side Management (IDSM) products and services. Our regulators reward our company's IDSM efforts with revenue recovery and potential shareholder earnings based on documented customer energy efficiency improvements resulting from our influence. This makes economic sense given IDSM derived electricity and gas resources are a lower cost resource than building more power plants, infrastructure or purchasing imported peak power.
Recently, retro commissioning commercial and process load equipment and controls has been growing in popularity with utility sponsored analysis and rebate programs. At PG&E, our reps use a combination of benchmarking and program offerings to establish a logical sequence of energy efficiency, load management, demand response, and self generation project co-funding and implementation. As the first utility company to automatically upload billing and usage data to the Energy Star Portfolio Manager benchmarking tool, our reps and customers can establish a simple energy performance and tracking tool that allows users to change the facility's operation parameters - such as operation hours, space use, occupancy, and other variables - on the fly. The metrics track the impact of projects and help identify opportunities for further retro commissioning, retrofit, demand response and self generation as part of a comprehensive IDSM or carbon footprint reduction plan.
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