The Los Angeles Department of Water and Power was honored by the California Municipal Utilities Association for an innovative program that has helped thousands of low-income Los Angeles residents reduce their energy and water use, and save on their utility bills.

LADWP received the association’s 2018 Resource Efficiency and Community Service Award for a joint program with the Southern California Gas Company that provides free energy and water efficiency upgrades for income-qualifying residents and multifamily residential buildings. The association’s award honors innovative and effective approaches to serving local community needs.

“LADWP is pleased to accept the 2018 award for Best Community Service Program – Large Utility from the CMUA,” said David Jacot, director of LADWP Efficiency Solutions. “By combining our utilities’ services, we are offering a more comprehensive package of programs that save natural resources and better serve the needs of our communities.”

“Keeping energy bills low is extremely important to our customers, so we are happy to work with LADWP to help people improve their homes’ energy efficiency,” said Dan Rendler, SoCalGas director of customer programs and assistance. “We congratulate our colleagues at LADWP and look forward to continuing our joint programs to help even more Angelenos reduce their energy use in the future.”

The program, called the joint Enhanced Energy Savings Assistance Program, builds upon the existing statewide program that requires investor-owned utilities to provide eligible low-income residents of multifamily buildings with energy and water efficiency measures at no cost. As a public municipal utility, LADWP elected to join with SoCalGas to enhance the existing program with additional electricity- and water-saving measures, and to reach all eligible customers in the agencies’ shared service areas to increase energy savings.

During 2016 and 2017, the joint Enhanced ESAP installed efficiency measures for 11,900 low-income, multifamily units in Los Angeles, including about 3,500 units of public housing. The expected annual resource savings includes over 93 million gallons of water and 4.6 megawatt-hours of electricity, as well as 170,000 therms of natural gas. Along with the efficiency upgrades, the program also provides efficiency education to residents, which helps them understand the importance of saving water and energy so they can reduce their use even further, benefitting themselves and the environment.

One unique aspect of the Enhanced ESAP is pairing the program with LADWP’s existing Commercial Direct Install Program to install energy efficiency measures in the common areas of buildings, such as hallways, lobbies, laundry rooms and community rooms as well as outdoor parking areas. LADWP also enhanced the program with specific electric efficiency measures, such as installing energy-saving light bulbs, smart power strips and LED night lights. Standard measures include weather stripping, caulking, low-flow faucet aerators and showerheads, and building repairs to seal gaps for better insulation.

To benefit as many qualified customers as possible, the program reaches out directly to affordable housing providers, such as the Housing Authority of the city of Los Angeles. The Housing Authority had already been reaching out to LADWP and SoCalGas to find ways to reduce energy and water use, and greenhouse gas emissions associated with its housing complexes, and they said that this joint program was a perfect fit.