3C-Ren Residential

Program Overview

Why should you participate in the Commercial Energy Savings Program?
The Commercial Energy Saving (CES) Program offers incentives directly to contractors for energy efficiency projects completed at small businesses or municipal government offices in Ventura, San Luis Obispo, and Santa Barbara Counties.

The program's primary focus are the Hard-to-Reach (HTR) businesses. Contractors can earn incentives for projects that save electricity and/or save gas. Extra incentives are paid for projects that serve residents that fall into the Hard-to-Reach category (i.e. location-based, English-as-a-second language, employee count, leased or rented space).

Lucrative incentives. Because payments are based on actual savings, you can earn $1,000s more than traditional rebate programs.

Advance payment. 20% of your forecasted incentive can be paid upfront for projects installed.

Local Focus: Higher incentive rates for projects installed at small businesses.

Serving Santa Barbara, San Luis Obispo, Ventura counties.

Program Resources

Incentive Budget Tracker

Eligibility

ELIGIBLE Project types

Site Eligibility
The site account's annual energy usage must be ≤150,000 kWh and ≤50,000 therms, based on the combined usage from all meters that serve the project site.

The site must be within the 3C-REN Service Area and receive electric service from:

Pacific Gas and Electric (PG&E)
Southern California Edison (SCE)
A Community Choice Aggregator

In order to earn incentives for gas savings, the site must be within the 3C-REN Service Area and receive gas service from:

Pacific Gas and Electric (PG&E)
Southern California Edison (SCE)
SoCalGas (SCG)

The site must be classified as a business with an eligible NAICS code, as listed in Appendix E of the Program Manual.

Project Eligibility
In order to earn incentives for the project, the following must be true about the project and/or the customer:

Projects cannot be enrolled in another ratepayer-funded energy efficiency program, including Market Access Programs and other FLEXmarkets.
The customer and meters involved in the project cannot be simultaneously enrolled in two CPUC-funded Energy Efficiency programs. Attempted dual enrollment will result in project removal and loss of incentives
The customer and meters must not have participated in any CPUC-funded Energy Efficiency program within the last 12 months.
All meters affected by the project must have 12 consecutive months of energy usage data for measurement and verification.
The project site must not have on-site generation (e.g., solar PV, thermal systems, energy storage) and cannot install any during the 12-month performance monitoring period. EV chargers are allowed if separately metered and included in the energy usage threshold.

hard-to-reach Eligibility

For Projects in Santa Barbara County or San Luis Obispo County
At least one of the following must be true:

Language - Primary language spoken is other than English
Business Size – 25 or fewer employees and/or classified as Very Small (Customers whose annual electric demand is less than 20 kilowatts (kW), or whose annual gas consumption is less than 10,000 therm, or both), and/or
Leased or Rented Facilities – Investments in improvements to a facility rented or leased by a participating business customer.
Municipal Building(s)
Member of a California Native American Tribe

For Projects in Ventura County
The following must be true:

Located in a Disadvantaged Communities (DAC) established by CalEnviroScreen 4.0 and at least one of the following criteria:

Language- Primary language spoken is other than English
Business Size – 25 or fewer employees and/or classified as Very Small (Customers whose annual electric demand is less than 20 kilowatts (kW), or whose annual gas consumption is less than 10,000 therm, or both), and/or
Leased or Rented Facilities – Investments in improvements to a facility rented or leased by a participating business customer.

OR

Not located in a DAC and meet all three criteria:

Language- Primary language spoken is other than English
Business Size – 25 or fewer employees and/or classified as Very Small (Customers whose annual electric demand is less than 20 kilowatts (kW), or whose annual gas consumption is less than 10,000 therm, or both)
Leased or Rented Facilities – Investments in improvements to a facility rented or leased by a participating business customer

Municipal Building(s)
Member of a California Native American Tribe

Incentives

Incentives overview

Payable Incentive calculations are based on the metered performance of the Aggregator’s portfolio of projects and will be delivered as a single portfolio level payment. Performance payments are made quarterly. Invoices will be shared by Recurve, approved by 3C-REN, and payments will be made by Frontier. Aggregators can expect upfront payments to take up to 90 days for the entire process.

The incentive payment is based on the total program value (adjusted avoided cost benefits) net of program management costs and advance payments for projects in the portfolio. Aggregators are paid for their portfolio value achieved based on metered savings from active projects achieved during the most recent measurement quarter.

Incentives are distributed on a first-come, first-served basis contingent upon funding availability. The first-come basis for projects is described in the “Project Enrollment Process” section of the program manual.

How Incentives are calculated

The incentive is calculated as the difference between the Total Systems Benefit (TSB) $-value of a project, minus Recurve’s marketplace management costs. The TSB is the measured hourly savings in an Aggregator’s portfolio multiplied by the hourly grid value as defined by the Adjusted Avoided Cost Curve (which includes capacity smoothing and appropriate multipliers) months, but receive the full benefit of the effective useful life (EUL) of the project (e.g. 12 years). Commercial Energy Savings Program management costs are calculated as 25% of the expected avoided cost value, based on the Aggregator’s forecast of energy savings.

Incentive Multipliers

The program offers an incentive multiplier of 2.0x for all Hard-to-Reach projects. At the end of the 2024 Program Year, or at the full subscription of the 2024 PY Budget, the incentive multiplier we will be subject to review for meeting program goals and objectives.

Advanced incentives

Aggregators whose projects have advanced to completion status will be eligible for a 20% advance payment of the estimated forecasted incentives. Advanced payments will be invoiced for once a month, on the last day of each month. They will contain projects which were confirmed as complete in the previous approximately month.

The advance payments will be debited against the Aggregator’s portfolio when calculating quarterly incentive payments. The Aggregator portfolio must deliver grid value beyond this debit prior to receiving additional payments.

All advance payments are capped at $20,000.

Payments

How payments are made

Payments to Aggregators are made quarterly during the 12-month measurement period for active projects in the Aggregator’s portfolio. The quarterly measurement periods are:

● January-March
● April-June
● July-September
● October-December

Payments are expected to be made within ninety (90) calendar days from the end of the previous measurement period. The 90 day period is driven by the coordination of 3 separate IOUs for data inputs to the program for savings tracking.

The incentive payment is based on the total program value (adjusted avoided cost benefits) net of program management costs and advance payments for projects in the portfolio. Aggregators are paid for their portfolio value achieved based on metered savings from active projects achieved during the most recent measurement quarter.

Aggregator portfolios are not eligible for an incentive payment if the net benefits from the projects do not exceed their advance payment (20% of forecasted incentive).

How to Participate in 3C-REN's
Commercial Energy Savings Program

1. Sign Up Here

2. Initial Project Enrollment

Submit your proposed project for Reservation

3. Project Completion

Install the project and submit the final paperwork to commence savings tracking and start earning incentives!