Convening the Sierra – Fall 2026
September 25, 2026
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Join SBC at these Upcoming Events Across the Region
PG&E’s Measured Savings Program for Summer Reliability (MSSR) is a pay-for-performance energy efficiency program designed to deliver measurable impacts at the meter through building retrofits, optimization, and load flexibility strategies. The goal of this program is to address high energy demand during peak hours in summer months, resulting in grid-wide reliability improvements. Incentives provided to the customer may cover 100% of project costs.
This program is overseen by Alternative Energy Systems Consulting, Inc. (AESC), and projects are implemented by ‘Aggregators’. After installing a project, Aggregators are paid based on weather-normalized energy use data measured at the customer meter during the 12-month ‘Measurement and Verification’ (M&V) period. Each project is required to undergo this period of study to determine project effectiveness and calculate incentives to be paid out to customers. After the M&V period is complete, program incentives are distributed based on ‘Total System Benefit’ (TSB) methods, which includes estimated lifetime grid savings, peak load savings, and the length of the expected effective useful life of energy improvements.
MSSR is available to all commercial PG&E customers, which includes the public agencies and small and medium sized businesses served by SNEW. However, not every customer may be eligible, or be a good fit for the program. To start, the site requirements needed to be compatible with program eligibility include:
Additionally, projects should aim to result in at least 10% savings to be effective. Some potential measures that could be ideal for this program include lighting, HVAC and HVAC controls retrofits, refrigeration, and other behavioral, retrocommissioning, and operations improvements. Some public and private building uses and load types that could be a good fit for this program can be seen in the table below:
The general order of operations for MSSR project submissions are as follows:
100% of incentives are signed over to the Agrregator by the customer to buy-down the project. About half of the expected incentives are paid to the Aggregator at the beginning of the M&V period, with the rest paid out at the end after estimated energy savings are confirmed by collected meter data. As a result, initial install costs for the customer are reduced since the incentive is built into the project cost. It is possible that incentives will cover the total project cost, but this isn’t always the case. If there are additional costs related to installation not covered by the incentive, customers can utilize on-bill financing (OBF) if they are eligible, which is a 0% interest loan provided by PG&E and paid back through energy bills.
If you’re interested in learning more about how this program can help fund your energy efficiency goals, please reach out to snew@sierrabusiness.org!
Join SBC at these Upcoming Events Across the Region
Two SNEW services that are often requested by Sierra Nevada public agencies are energy benchmarking (sometimes including AB 802 reporting for buildings
California’s 2026-27 legislative session wrapped up September 1 after a turbulent final week of negotiations over wildfire policy, funding, and the state budget. While a last-minute proposal on wildfire liability ultimately stalled, the Legislature did restore and increase funding for climate resilience through Proposition 4 and the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund (GGRF)—a meaningful outcome for Sierra communities amid a challenging state budget year.
The final plan includes $329.5 million for wildfire and forest resilience through Prop 4 and $118 million for wildfire prevention through GGRF. While these investments are an improvement over the June budget, wildfire resilience funding remains near historic lows, with no clear plan for sustained investment in future years.
Read more about the final budget, Prop 4 and GGRF allocations, and what’s next for wildfire and climate resilience in the Sierra.