Pacific Gas and Electric Co. and Enphase Energy are launching a home battery energy storage program to support vulnerable, low-income customers during power outages.
Through the Residential Storage Initiative, PG&E is providing battery systems at no cost to about 100 residential customers who have been frequently impacted by outages as a result of PG&E's Enhanced Powerline Safety Settings (EPSS).
These enhanced safety settings protect millions of Californians who live in high fire-risk areas within PG&E's service area. To help prevent wildfire ignitions, the safety settings turn off power within one-tenth of a second when a fault, such as a tree limb contacting a power line, is detected.
PG&E's use of these enhanced safety settings in high fire-risk and select adjacent areas in 2022 has led to a 65% reduction in ignitions in those areas.
PG&E is taking actions to reduce the burden of these safety-related outages on customers and communities, including partnering with Enphase to develop the Residential Storage Initiative.
While battery availability is limited to the first 100 enrollments on a first-come, first-served basis during the launch phase of the initiative, PG&E and Enphase anticipate expanding installations to several hundred new systems in 2023.
Since October, working with Enphase as the battery provider and Richard Heath & Associates Inc. (RHA) as the contracted installer, PG&E has reached out to approximately 1,000 pre-qualified customers. The companies have completed approximately 100 site assessments and installed approximately 20 new home battery systems.
Participating customers will be auto enrolled in the PG&E Power Saver Rewards program, which provides customers with a bill credit during times of high electricity demand when they voluntarily reduce energy consumption and use energy stored in their battery systems.
