Since June 2012, San Diego Gas and Electric (SDG&E) customers have been participating in the San Diego Energy Challenge and saving energy to win prizes for themselves and help their favorite San Diego Unified School District middle schools win valuable cash grants. Together they have encouraged over 3,900 people to participate in the Energy Challenge on behalf of 39 middle schools who are competing for a generous $10,000 grand prize.
Simple Energy and SDG&E are partnered to bring this innovative program San Diego residents to empower customers with energy usage information at home. The program leverages the Simple Energy Customer Engagement Platform to engage customers and deliver measurable and verifiable energy efficiency, demand side management, and smart grid results through cutting edge behavioral science techniques.
On November 13th, Pacific Beach Middle School, a participating school in the Energy Challenge held an event to help SDG&E promote the final weeks of the school competition. Attendees watched presentations about energy efficiency and learned about electric vehicles, even getting to see one of SDG&E’s electric vehicles in action. The event was a great success and the students enjoyed learning more about the different ways they can make a difference in their energy consumption.
The school competition will run through November 30th and there are several leading schools making a push for participation in the final week. If you live in a San Diego Unified School District neighborhood, sign up for the Energy Challenge to help your favorite school at: sdenergychallenge.com.
About the San Diego Energy Challenge
In July 2012 the San Diego Energy Challenge (SDEC) launched to ~470,000 eligible residential customers. The SDEC is an energy saving game that gives customers a fun way to compete with their friends and neighbors to save energy and win prizes for themselves and their favorite
San Diego Unified School District (SDUSD) middle school. The game also ties into the Reduce Your Use reward program by encouraging customers to save even more when it matters most. On Reduce Your Use days, customers are encouraged to save energy between 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. for their chance to win prizes in the San Diego Energy Challenge.
In summer 2011, SDG&E and Simple Energy ran the Biggest Energy Saver program in conjunction with a SDG&E home area network pilot. The pilot showed strong participation and users saved an average of 8.2 kWh per day when compared with a control group of home area network only participants who saved an average of 3.9 kWh per day. In 2012, the program was expanded to ~470,000 eligible participants and modified to fit with SDGE’s demand response program, Reduce Your Use.
