Public Data
Equity Budget and Spending
What is equity, and why is it important?
Making the clean energy transition equitable will require commitment and significant resources. Without intentional intervention, disproportionately impacted communities will not have the same level of access to and resources for electrification. Equity is transforming the behaviors, institutions, and systems that disproportionately harm people of color. Equity means increasing access to power, redistributing, and providing additional resources, and eliminating barriers to opportunity, in order to empower disproportionately impacted populations to thrive and reach their full potential. These equity approaches are intended to also applicable to creating equitable outcomes for other groups such as the elderly and people with disabilities.
Our equity goals
TECH Clean California aims to:
- Integrate with existing offerings to:
- Offer additional services that the existing program may not be able to cover
- De-risk installations for the installation contractor
- Provide strategic tools that can enhance program outcomes, such as program targeting to maximize impacts per household and reduce the risk of negative bill impacts
- Analyze program impacts to refine program strategy
- Develop and de-risk new program strategies that could increase the scale and impact of California’s low-income programs:
- Pilot financing approaches, such as inclusive utility investment
- Pilot moderate income approaches to serve houses that do not qualify
- Allocate 40 percent of our total budget towards equity installations
The budget report below will track how much equity funding is available for all TECH Clean California initiatives, and how close TECH Clean California is to reaching our equity spending goal.
The Federal Government's goal percentage of climate change and clean energy investment impacts reaching disadvantaged communities, established in the Justice40 Initiative in 2021.
Inspired by the Justice40 initiative, TECH Clean California has allocated $50M of incentive dollars, which is 40% of total program spending going towards equity communities.
What is an equity community?
| Criterion | Source | Single Family Buildings | Multifamily Buildings | Other Building Types |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| In a CalEnviroScreen 4.0 Disadvantaged Community | CES 4.0 / CPUC Environmental and Social Justice Community definition | X | X | X |
| Household using a CARE or FERA gas or electricity rate and/or participated in an Energy Savings Assistance Program | Low-income | X | X | |
| Not in SF Bay Area, Greater LA area, Sacramento area or San Diego County and not a homeowner (e.g., renter) | CPUC Hard-to-reach Community definition | X | ||
| Affordable housing: At least 66% of living units are <80% AMI or deed-restricted housing; or subsidized deed-restricted housing | Low-income | X |
TECH Clean California incentive levels do not differ for equity communities, and you do not need to meet an equity definition to participate. For information about incentive budgets available to Californians statewide, view our Incentives page.
Terms Used
Multifamily properties occupied by households with a majority of tenants with incomes at or below 60 percent of the area median income or located in a disadvantaged community as identified by the California Environmental Protection Agency (CalEPA).
CalEnviroScreen is a mapping tool that helps classify California communities that are most affected by pollution and where people are most vulnerable to the effects of pollution. Environmental, health, and socioeconomic information is used to create scores for state census tracts, where a higher score implies a higher pollution burden on an area.
Customers on a CARE/FERA rate pay a discounted price in their energy bills to PG&E
A census tract that scores in the top 25% of CalEnviroScreen 3.0, along with those that score within the highest 5% of CalEnviroScreen 3.0's Pollution Burden but do not receive an overall CalEnviroScreen score; all Tribal lands; low-income households; and low-income census tracts
There are common as well as separate criteria when defining hard-to-reach for residential versus small business customers. The barriers common to both include a lack of access to program information or low participation in energy efficiency programs due to a combination of language, business size, geographic, and lease (split incentive) barriers. For small businesses, added criteria to the above include business size and leased or rented facilities. For residential customers, added criteria to the above include income, housing type, and designations like disadvantaged communities as defined by CalEPA.
Read the full definition in Section 2.5.2 of CPUC D18-05-041.
Households or census tracts with household incomes at or below 80 percent of the statewide median income or with household incomes at or below the threshold designated as low income by the Department of Housing and Community Development's list of state income limits adopted pursuant to Section 50093
A community that meets one of the following criteria: is a “disadvantaged community” as defined by subdivision (g) of Section 75005 of the Public Resources Code; is included within the definition of “low-income communities” as defined by paragraph (2) of subdivision (d) of Section 39713 of Health and Safety Code; is within an area identified as among the most disadvantaged 25 percent in the state according to the California Environmental Protection Agency and based on the most recent California Communities Environmental Health Screening Tool, also known as CalEnviroScreen; is one where at least 75 percent of public school students in the project area are eligible to receive free or reduced-price meals under the National School Lunch Program, or; is located on lands belonging to a federally recognized California Indian tribe.