February 27
PG&E Introduces Clean Energy Calculator Powered by GridX
This week's top smart energy news, curated by the Smart Energy Consumer Collaborative (SECC).
Member News
PG&E this week unveiled a new website designed to help customers make informed decisions as they explore all-electric appliances and solutions. Developed in partnership with GridX, PG&E’s Clean Energy Calculator delivers personalized cost and savings estimates that help customers understand how clean energy choices may impact their energy bills, total cost of buying, installing and operating an electric appliance or vehicle, and available rate plans and other incentives.
Under the partnership, Rivians will be available as controllable resources to more than 150 utilities on EnergyHub’s distributed energy resource management platform, giving system operators dispatchable flexibility during times of grid stress. The move isn’t just about plugging the Rivian ecosystem into EnergyHub’s DERMS platform, but rather about unlocking near-term headroom on constrained local grids, said Jeff Huron, EnergyHub’s head of EV strategy.
The Smart Energy Consumer Collaborative (SECC) has released its “2026 State of the Consumer” report, finding that energy affordability has emerged as the universal priority for electricity customers across income levels, age groups and technology comfort levels. The annual report synthesizes insights from more than 5,000 responses to nationally representative consumer surveys conducted in 2025.
Consumers Energy highlighted 2025 as a year of significant infrastructure investment and reported thousands of completed projects last year aimed at strengthening Michigan’s electric grid, reducing outages and controlling long-term costs for customers. Crews across the state completed nearly 2,700 low- and high-voltage distribution reliability projects as part of the company’s ongoing Reliability Roadmap.
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Industry News
It’s official: Grid batteries broke another record. More than 13 GW of energy storage was installed across the U.S. last year, per a new report from the Business Council for Sustainable Energy and BloombergNEF. That’s up from the roughly 12 GW installed in 2024. It’s the latest reminder of the meteoric rise of battery storage, a quick-to-deploy technology that’s key to cutting emissions from the electricity system.
The Hawaii Public Utility Commission (PUC) submitted a legislative proposal recently to establish the Hawaii Home Energy Assistance Program (HI-HEAP). This initiative is designed to provide relief to Hawaii ratepayers who are struggling to meet rising energy costs. Many families are unable to access federal utility payment assistance due to the low funding levels apportioned to Hawaii under the federal Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP).
U.S. power plant developers and operators plan to add 86 gigawatts (GW) of new utility-scale electric generating capacity to the U.S. power grid in 2026 in the Energy Information Administration’s latest Preliminary Monthly Electric Generator Inventory report, a record if realized. Solar power makes up 51% of the planned 2026 capacity additions, followed by battery storage at 28% and wind at 14%.
With utility bills rising fast, an increasing number of states are looking to virtual power plants as a potential solution. As of last year, 34 states have programs that call on utilities to use smart thermostats and water heaters, batteries and EV chargers, and energy management systems at businesses and factories to combat rising electricity rates.
