I don't have as negative opinion of PG&E's efforts to assist homeowners with reducing energy costs. I'm pretty sure in our PG&E bills we've seen that you can call and have PG&E do an energy audit for you. Pretty sure that's free too. I know my mom's utility back east also offers a program like this to spot areas of concern or make suggestions on making homes more energy efficient. Suppose suggestions can also be as simple as weather stripping, caulking aroud windows and doors, adding that shrink film to single pane windows in the winter to add a layer of air insulation, garage door insulation for homes with livable space above the garage, solar shades or window tinting. Lots of ways actually.
PG&E also has an online Home Energy Checkup for tips to improve your home's energy usage. They also publish online an
2021 Residentail Rebate Catalog. Their
Home Money Saver Residential Rebates Program on appliances can help as well. Some of those energy upgrades may need to go through a contractor which you mentioned above when having products installed. When we update our old furnace/AC unit I hope there will be rebates available for it but we'll be going from a 10SEER unit to something much better rated so that alone will save us money/kWs over the year. Think right now the rebates are just thermostate and water heated related but could be wrong.
I think if people want/need help they need to be proactive and ask their utility company, appliance and hardware stores themselves as to what is available as a first step. The onus falls on the renter/homeowner as it should be as a consumer.
While I agree that there are some programs to help address topical / easy stuff, The root cause of most of the high-energy nastygrams is simply that PG&E sucks. Yes, those links you provided can help shave a few kWh off on in month, but there's something more systemic that is wrong than some band aid recommendations. But PG&E and folks always point to band aids as fixes the lazy homeowner isn't doing to get their costs down.
As I've mentioned in other threads, after buying this house and moving in, I started getting PG&E's letters about how crazy of an energy offender I was. Reading their materials, I thought my home was built out of swiss cheese, and my family was flushing energy down the toilet as the least efficient morons to walk the earth.
I did everything within reason on their stupid audit.
I got brand new 20 SEER ACs... everything energy-star certified... LED bulbs everywhere... HERS tests... put timers on all lights that may be left on, wrapped my hot water heater, put the heat-reflective crap in my limited attic space, installed an attic fan, blah blah blah. Imagine if I didn't have the resources to put $40,000 of new appliances and upgrades into my home. I'd just be left blaming myself and my stupidity.
But after spending all that money, the problem kept happening. PG&E wouldn't let up. Every month "did you know you SUCK???" I'd ask my neighbors about it, and they said the only way they got PG&E off their backs was to never run the air conditioning, blackout shade all their windows, stopped washing the dishes, and limited the drier only to linens and sheets. Of course nobody wants to live like the 1930s, so they just pay their sky-high energy bill and keep having PG&E tell them they sucked.
Well guess what, the problem isn't me or my neighbors. The Problem is PG&E. If I use 700 kWh in February, I get hit with their nasty gram. 700 kWh is like nothing. If I go up to 1,400 kWh in the summer, that's still below the national average for homes with air conditioning! PG&E gaslit my ignorant self into thinking I was the problem. The problem is PG&E and their BS. But while I was stupidly fumbling around wondering if I could save a few bucks turning down the
brightness of my TV to save on power, I wasn't paying attention to PG&E and their huge waste. This distraction is what PG&E wants. Homeowners blaming homeowners for poorly managing their home energy footprint is what PG&E wants.
Homeowners simply shouldn't have to sit in the dark, staring at a wall to get their energy bills down thinking they themselves are the problem. The "Margaret" in the article basically said her bill went from $90 and doubled. What isn't clear is if her kWh usage also doubled. Assuming she has a energy problem that isn't clear to her, then PG&E's checklist of "help" simply doesn't support a homeowner to "fix" that sort of problem. So she sits in the dark and stares at unclean dishes and wet clothes because folks tell her that her own behavior is at fault. It's just stupid.
