Our first-ever scorecard of US utilities, released today, reveals striking regional differences and identifies the best — and worst — performers on energy efficiency. The 2017 Utility Energy Efficiency Scorecard looks at the performance of the 51 largest electric utilities in the United States and highlights cutting-edge efforts. Topping the list are Eversource Massachusetts and National Grid Massachusetts, which both earned the same score. Rounding out the top five are Pacific Gas & Electric, Baltimore Gas & Electric, and Eversource Connecticut.

Map showing the utilities in the scorecard, denoting the top performers.

Utilities are the primary providers of energy efficiency programs for US electricity customers. These programs deliver enormous benefits to households and businesses. Efficiency lowers customer bills, allows utilities to avoid or defer building new power plants or other infrastructure, and reduces local pollutants associated with electricity generation.

We wanted to dig further into this topic to determine which utilities are doing the best on energy efficiency programs and how others can improve. Typical programs encourage the purchase of efficient appliances, lighting, and heating, ventilation, and cooling (HVAC) — both at home and in other places such as commercial kitchens and restaurants.

Leading utilities sometimes undertake 20 or more efficiency programs. Only a few utilities take some of the more forward-thinking approaches such as promoting smart thermostats, residential geo-targeting, zero net energy buildings, and advanced space-heating heat pumps.

Read more (American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy)