Dive Brief:

• The Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (DWP) Commission has adopted more aggressive goals to lower power consumption and intends to reduce usage by 15% by 2020 compared to 2010 levels.
• The DWP will pay for some homes and businesses to be retrofitted or upgrade their equipment in order to achieve the goals.
• The new goal is significantly higher than the 10% energy reduction target required by the state.

Dive Insight:

The DWP plans to spend $1.25 billion across the next decade to help end-users lower their usage, according to Southern California Public Radio. 

Lower power consumption will likely mean higher rates to cover fixed costs for the utility, utility officials indicated, but thus far environmentalists and consumer advocates appear to still be on board. Lower sales, said DWP CFO Philip Leiber, means ratepayers will see higher prices. He projected rates would be about 1.3% higher under the new targets and said those rates would likely be proposed for fiscal year 2015-2016.

Environmental and consumer advocates seem amenable to the tradeoff, saying the plan will help reduce environmental impacts and make the system more efficient.