August 29
Which Households Care Most About Energy Efficiency?
Top consumer smart energy news hand-selected and brought to you by the Smart Energy Consumer Collaborative.
Member News
Younger U.S. residents are taking a greater interest in energy efficiency and turning to technology to help them achieve it, according to a survey by the Smart Energy Consumer Collaborative. The most “informed and engaged” consumers, about 34 percent of the population, are generally under age 55 and most likely to have children in the home, it found. “Turnkey comfort” consumers, about 13 percent of respondents, had the least favorable views toward energy efficiency.
Nationwide, EV ownership is on the rise. In 2024, 1.6 million EVs were sold, with the sales share topping 10 percent. In an era of increasing load growth, EVs create new challenges and opportunities for utilities tasked with managing electricity demand. Not only can these relatively large new loads contribute to the system-wide peak demand straining grids across the country, but they can also impact distribution network congestion.
Xcel Energy got approval from the Minnesota Public Utilities Commission to extend operations of the Prairie Island nuclear plant through the early 2050s. Prairie Island has two units that together produce 1,100 MW of electricity, enough to power more than one million homes across the Upper Midwest. The current operating licenses for the two units expire in 2033 and 2034, respectively.
American Municipal Power, Inc. recently said it recently welcomed three new Member communities from the state of Pennsylvania: the boroughs of Chambersburg, Middletown and Tarentum. These three public power communities are the latest to benefit from the wide variety of services that AMP provides to its members. Formed in 1971 and based in Columbus, Ohio, AMP is the nonprofit wholesale power supplier and services provider for more than 130 members.
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Industry News
Managed charging programs can turn flexible electric vehicle loads into a grid resource capable of generating $30 billion in annual utility savings, according to research from ev.energy, a managed charging provider in the United States, and The Brattle Group. Each actively managed vehicle can create up to $575 in avoided costs for utilities, leading to a 10-percent reduction in all customer electric bills by 2035 – whether they own an EV or not, according to the report.
California’s premier “virtual power plant” program is already reducing the state’s reliance on polluting, costly fossil-fueled power plants. And that’s just the start of what the scattered network of solar and batteries could do to stymie rising utility costs – if the state legislature can stave off funding cuts to the program, that is. So finds a new analysis from consultancy The Brattle Group on the potential of the statewide Demand Side Grid Support (DSGS) program.
Approximately 12 GW of new utility-scale solar electric generating capacity was added by developers in the first half of 2025, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA). In addition, developers plan to add another 21 GW in the second half of the year. If that comes to fruition, solar would account for more than half of the 64 GW that developers plan to bring online this year, according to EIA.
On the last Tuesday in July, over 100,000 residential batteries across California simultaneously discharged to the grid for two hours. They were part of a coordinated virtual power plant test – and according to PG&E, the resulting 539-MW dispatch was equivalent to the output of a mid-size natural gas plant. The July 29 demonstration combined fleets of behind-the-meter systems from Sunrun and Tesla.
