TECH Clean California Heat Pump Water Heater Program Wins a PLMA 2025 "Excellence in Load Management" Award
May 6, 2025
On May 6, 2025, TECH Clean California accepted the Peak Load Management Alliance (PLMA) Award of Excellence in Load Management. The award — given at the 2025 PLMA Spring Conference in Kansas City, Missouri — recognized TECH Clean California’s Heat Pump Water Heater Program team, including the California Public Utilities Commission, for its integrated demand-side management* requirements, which include enrollment in a demand response, daily load shifting, and time-of-use enrollment for heat pump water heater equipment incentives.**
“We’re glad to be a part of the PLMA community and a part of this collective effort to continuously innovate and to lead in demand management,” said Emily Kehmeier, Energy Solutions Senior Manager, when she accepted the award on behalf of the TECH Clean California team.
The PLMA Awards of Excellence “honor individuals, institutions, industry partners, and experts who have demonstrated exceptional innovation, leadership, and dedication to advancing flexible load management practices.” Nominees must demonstrate that their efforts set new standards for flexible load management within the energy industry and have achieved significant impact on the efficiency, reliability, and sustainability of energy systems.
TECH Clean California’s integrated demand-side management approach to heat pump water heater incentives met these impressive standards, establishing best practices that will be an asset to others involved in designing and implementing integrated demand-side management programs. Some of the program’s key findings are summarized in a two-page flyer published by the TECH Clean California Heat Pump Water Heater Load Shifting Pilot, which supported the implementation of the integrated demand-side management requirements. Best practices include guidance for flexible, simple program design that supports contractors while still achieving intended grid and customer benefits, and contractor-reported tips for how fellow contractors can successfully implement demand response measures and best communicate with customers.
This cutting-edge program design and implementation was made possible by months of planning and coordinating with market actors — manufacturers, demand response program providers, and especially contractors. A large part of the success came from working closely with contractors. Contractors held the responsibility of facilitating customer demand response enrollments, and it was critical for the TECH Clean California team to provide education, resources, and one-one-one support. The TECH Clean California team continually gathered contractor feedback through surveys, focus groups, and one-on-one calls; addressed common contractor challenges; provided a variety of educational resources on demand response; and worked to troubleshoot specific issues to ensure as many customers as possible were able to meet enrollment requirements.
"There's still work to be done and new ideas to explore to make demand response requirements as seamless as possible for integrated demand side management programs,” said Kehmeier. “But this effort shows that contractors can be demand response leaders in these programs and help California to achieve its electrification and renewable generation goals.”
*Integrated demand side management (IDSM) programs promote energy-efficient technologies with additional demand management measures, such as demand response enrollment.
**TECH Clean California’s demand management requirements for heat pump water heater incentives come from the California Public Utilities Commission’s requirements for the Self-Generation Incentive Program (SGIP) Heat Pump Water Heater Program, which is the source of funding and rules for TECH Clean California’s current heat pump water heater incentive offering.