Technologies such as rooftop solar, smart thermostats and energy efficiency measures have given customers more power to control their energy usage and potentially reduce their costs. As more emerging technologies, such as electric vehicles (EV), smart EV chargers, energy storage systems and energy monitoring devices become commercially viable, customers will have more control over their usage. By being proactive and working with our customers to identify and respond to their changing needs, we remain well positioned to deliver value.
And by providing customers the opportunity to manage their energy and peak demands, we can expand the use and understanding of load-management technologies, encourage customers to conserve energy or use energy during off-peak hours and better align with solar production and system-peak conditions. Taking these innovations to scale isn’t just good for customers and the energy grid, it will help us achieve our bold Clean Energy Commitment.
Green Power Partners
In July 2022, we launched the Green Power Partners (GPP) program providing commercial and industrial customers the ability to achieve their sustainability goals by purchasing electricity generated from utility scale renewable resources. GPP helps customers reach their sustainability goals, as well as supports economic development and job creation by encouraging businesses to relocate or expand in Arizona.
Take Charge AZ
Through Take Charge AZ, we install and owns EV charging equipment at various workplace, fleet and multifamily communities, enabling us to gain knowledge that will help facilitate the electrification of the transportation sector while maintaining grid reliability. As of year-end 2022, we have installed 672 Level 2 (L2) charging ports at customer locations, with more stations expected to be added through 2023. In addition, APS has installed five Direct Current Fast Charging (DCFC) stations throughout our service territory. Each location has one charging plaza with four individual DCFC stations.
Learn more about the Transportation Electrification Program.
Solar Communities
In late 2021, the Solar Communities program was extended for an additional three years. This program makes solar and its clean-energy benefits available to limited- and moderate-income customers, as well as governments, schools and nonprofits. As of year-end, 2022, the program has resulted in the following installations since program inception:
- 738 limited- and moderate-income household installations
- 17 multifamily systems
- 22 nonprofits, Title I schools and rural or government buildings
Residential Battery Pilot
This pilot encourages customers who adopt energy storage to operate their battery for bill savings and provide peak demand savings value to the energy grid. The Residential Battery Pilot program will continue to help inform us for future efforts to create a distributed fleet of customer-owned energy storage systems that can be dispatched in a coordinated manner to address bother customer and grid requirements.
Rewards Programs
Our industry-leading and award-winning demand response (DR), energy storage, and load management pilots and programs incentivized customers to adopt advanced technologies in their homes to help consume electricity at midday when solar energy is plentiful, and to conserve power in the late afternoon and early evening when it is in greatest demand and thus costs more.
Customers benefit from incentives, discounts and energy-savings options for voluntarily conserving energy. APS Cool Rewards had more than 73,800 residential smart thermostats enrolled in 2022. The program has a demonstrated capability of shedding more than 100 megawatts of energy from APS’s smart grid. This shift is just one of the strategies and innovative solutions for our customers to collaborate with us to reduce carbon emissions to meet our clean energy goals.
Our legacy rewards program Reserve Rewards allowed us to gain insight and inform us to create other pilot programs like, the Connected Water Heating Controls Pilot through the Multi-Family Homes program, Wi-Fi connected retrofit controls for electric water heaters. These allow water heating to be timed around Time-of-Use rates or in response to our DR events. This pilot will provide bill savings, reduce peak demand and equity support providing distributed energy resources (DER) benefits for renters.
APS Marketplace
APS Marketplace is an online shopping site where customers can shop for energy efficient technologies to help customers save energy or manage their energy usage. The Marketplace provides product reviews and ratings and compares prices and energy-efficiency scores so that customers are better informed. Through APS Marketplace, APS offers a variety of promotions including LED light kit promotions including welcome kits for Energy Support (E3) customers. Customers can also claim rebates for eligible thermostats and smart EV chargers purchased through other retailers as well as purchase thermostats that are pre-enrolled in the APS Cool Rewards demand response program.
APS Cars Marketplace is another resource for our customers to compare car models based on fuel efficiency, available incentives, and total cost of ownership. APS offers a Spanish translation to allow more customers to visit and utilize the site. In 2023, we will be launching APS Fleet Marketplace to help our business customers understand the costs and benefits of fleet electrification.
Conservation Behavior Programs
The Residential Conservation Behavior program, delivered in partnership with Oracle OPower, is made up of several interrelated customer offerings. Home Energy Reports (HERs) provide energy savings and education for participating customers through regularly executed printed and digital reports. The HERs compare participant usage with similar homes and provide customized tips for reducing or shifting energy usage. This benchmarking has proven to be an effective way to raise awareness of home energy use and achieve sustainable behavior changes. APS also has offered customized tips for low- and moderate-income households receiving HERs, and a Spanish language version of the HERs.
Energy Savings Days
This behavioral demand response program complements APS’s existing demand response programs and provides valuable energy (~6,000 MWh) and peak demand (~5.5M W) reduction. Throughout the demand response season, participants receive emails before and after each event. Pre-event emails let participants know the date and time of the upcoming Energy Saving Days event, when they should shift or reduce energy usage.
Time of Use (TOU) and TOU with Demand High Bill Alerts
To make participants aware of times when their energy bill could exceed their previous year’s bill by 30% or more; email communications to the 220,000 participants in the high bill alerts program also include tips on reducing or shifting energy usage.
Plan Coach
Weekly Plan Coach digital communications inform participants how small changes in energy usage can realize energy and monetary savings on their specific rate plan—whether they are on the APS fixed charge rate, the TOU rate, or the TOU rate with demand. Not only do Plan Coach products support customer education and savings goals, helping customers get the most out of their rate plans, but TOU and Demand Plan Coach also support the APS Clean Energy Commitment to provide 100% clean, carbon-free energy by 2050, because they drive on-peak demand savings and shift energy usage to midday periods when solar energy is abundant.
Energy Efficiency Programs
APS develops and implements Demand Side Management (DSM) programs and educational outreach efforts that seek to help all customers save on their energy costs, with a focus on helping limited-income customers, nonprofits, small businesses and disadvantaged communities. The Advanced Rooftop Control (ARC) Pilot is designed to manage and reduce energy use while also increasing fresh air ventilation to improve health conditions inside public, private and charter K-12 schools and qualifying nonprofit facilities that provide emergency services and house the needy and homeless. The APS Tribal Communities Energy Efficiency Program serves the Hopi and Navajo tribal communities in Northern Arizona. The program provides free weatherization and energy efficiency equipment upgrades to tribal member homes and businesses.
With traditional energy efficiency measures such as LED light bulbs and energy-efficient appliances commonplace, we are pursuing the next generation of energy efficiency. Energy efficiency measures and programs that have been approved and will be offered for the benefit of our customers in 2023 include:
- Electrification and Electric Vehicle (EV) Managed Charging Pilot- four separate program elements: data collection on EV charging behaviors, incentives for installing ENERY STAR certified, connected Level 2 EV chargers, direct EV load management, and consumer education about EV load management.
- Shade Tree Program- offer customer incentives towards the purchase of qualifying shade trees, with a focus on providing shade for areas of the community that currently lack shade.
The energy efficiency standard (EES) set by the Arizona Corporation Commission required utilities to achieve cumulative savings equivalent to 22% of 2020 retail sales, which we accomplished in 2021. APS continued successful implementation of DSM programs in 2022 by achieving over 26% cumulative savings of 2021 retail sales and stayed in compliance by exceeding the 22% cumulative savings goal. Our portfolio of energy efficiency programs provided approximately 354,150 MWh of energy savings for 2022. That is enough energy to power more than 29,074 typical Arizona households for an entire year. Since 2005, the lifetime energy savings from our energy efficiency programs have avoided approximately 25.6 million metric tons of carbon emissions.
Learn more about our DSM program accomplishments in our 2022 DSM Annual Report.
Weatherization Assistance
We also provide funding for limited-income home weatherization in partnership with community action agencies throughout Arizona. This weatherization program enables qualified customers to make their homes more energy efficient. In 2022, APS spent $5.48 million to complete limited-income weatherization projects around the state.
Learn more about our weatherization programs.
Recognitions
As we continue to design programs to meet our customer need, we received the following industry awards in 2022:
- 2022 The Cleanie Award - Keep the Power On | Demand Side Management (DSM) and renewable energy portfolio
- 2022 ENERGY STAR® Partner of the Year Award for excellence, energy efficiency and program delivery
