Customer Segments/Types

Customers are generally divided into two major types: residential or nonresidential. Within those two broad categories, programs may be targeted to one or more subsegments, as described in this section.

Residential

Residential Customers: Existing single family residences, multi-family dwellings (whether master-metered or individually metered), and buildings that are essentially residential but used for commercial purposes, including, but not limited to, time shares and vacation homes.

Residential Hard-to-Reach: Those customers who do not have easy access to program information or generally do not participate in energy efficiency programs due to a language, income, housing type, geographic, or home ownership (split incentives) barrier. These barriers are defined as:

· Language - Primary language spoken is other than English, and/or

· Income - Those customers who fall into the moderate income level (income levels less than 400% of federal poverty guidelines), and/or

· Housing Type - Multi-Family and Mobile Home Tenants, and/or

· Geographic - Residents of areas other than the San Francisco Bay Area, San Diego area, Los Angeles Basin or Sacramento, and/or

· Homeownership - Renters

Nonresidential

Nonresidential: Facilities used for business, commercial, agricultural, institutional, and industrial purposes. Nonresidential customers are further divided into the following subsectors, on the basis of annual electric demand or annual gas consumption:

Large nonresidential: Customers whose annual electric demand is greater than 500 kilowatts (kW), or whose annual or annualized gas consumption is greater than 250,000 therms, or both

Medium nonresidential: Customers whose annual electric demand is between 100 kW and 500 kW, or whose annual or annualized gas consumption is between 50,000 therms and 250,000 therms, or both

Small nonresidential: Customers whose annual electric demand is between 20 kW and 100 kW, or whose annual gas consumption is between 10,000 therms and 50,000 therms, or both

Very small nonresidential: Customers whose annual electric demand is less than 20 kW, or whose annual gas consumption is less than 10,000 therms, or both.

Nonresidential Hard-to-Reach: Those customers who do not have easy access to program information or generally do not participate in energy efficiency programs due to a language, business size, geographic, or lease (split incentive) barrier. These barriers are defined as:

· Language - Primary language spoken is other than English, and/or

· Business Size - Less than ten employees and/or classified as Very Small (as defined above), and/or

· Geographic - Businesses in areas other than the San Francisco Bay Area, San Diego area, Los Angeles Basin or Sacramento, and/or

· Lease - Investments in improvements to the building benefit the business only during the lease period; landlords benefit longer.

Chain Account: a customer with two or more accounts that have the same billing address and same customer name but with more than one service address.

Large chain: a chain whose total aggregated demand over all customer accounts is greater than 500 kW, or whose annual gas consumption is greater than 250,000 therms.

Small chain: a chain whose total aggregated demand over all customer accounts is less than or equal to 500 kW, or whose annual gas consumption is less than or equal to 250,000 therms.