U.S. Utilities Push Home Energy Data to Close Virtual Power Plant Gap
Customers systematically overestimate their own clean energy adoption, undermining demand-response programs utilities are counting on to manage grid stress.
Consumers enrolling in utility demand-response programs believe they own clean energy technology at rates that bear little resemblance to reality. A survey cited in a Canary Media report published on August 6 (2026-08-06) found roughly 25% of respondents claiming to own a heat pump water heater, while industry data put actual adoption closer to 2%. About 14% said they owned battery storage; penetration is under 1%.4
The gap is not academic. Utilities and grid operators are betting heavily on virtual power plants — aggregated networks of smart thermostats, water heaters, batteries and EV chargers that can shed or shift load on command — to contain peak demand without building new generation. The U.S. Department of Energy estimated that tripling VPP capacity to between 80 and 160 gigawatts by 2030 could shave 10% to 20% of peak load and save close to $10 billion annually in grid costs. If the underlying customer asset base is misunderstood by the customers themselves, enrollment projections and dispatch modeling are built on shaky ground.4
States are moving fast. New Jersey, Virginia and Illinois have advanced legislation and regulations to accelerate VPP deployment, according to Canary Media's August 6 reporting. The policy push assumes customers can be recruited into programs at scale. The survey data suggest a more complicated recruiting environment: people who think they already own grid-responsive hardware are a poor target for enrollment, and people who genuinely own it often don't know what programs are available.4
One proven tool for closing the information gap is the home energy report. PG&E, which serves approximately 16 million people across northern and central California including 5.5 million residential households, expanded its Home Energy Reports program around 2020 from just over one million participants to roughly 3.2 million households, reaching most of its eligible population. The utility reported in Utility Dive on August 3 (2026-08-03) that the program has since avoided approximately 1.55 million metric tons of carbon emissions and delivered an estimated $1.16 billion in customer bill savings.3
Home energy reports have been a utility efficiency staple for more than 15 years, typically comparing a customer's consumption against similar nearby homes. The ACEEE report examined by Utility Dive found the programs are now adapting to a broader purpose: not just nudging conservation, but building the informed customer base that demand-response and VPP programs require. Telling someone they use 20% more electricity than their neighbors is less useful than telling them why, and what a time-of-use tariff or smart thermostat enrollment could mean for their bill.3
The smart thermostat angle adds another layer of complexity. Renew Home, working with EnergyHub, has been extracting grid-flexibility value from thermostats already installed in homes — a "background" approach that doesn't require the customer to take any active step once enrolled, according to Canary Media reporting from April (2026-04-20). A utility executive cited in that piece expected the results to be cost-effective for the utility, though the financial arrangements underpinning the program were not disclosed publicly. That opacity matters: if utilities are monetizing customer hardware access without full transparency, regulators and customers are flying blind on who captures the value.1
Energy Consumers Australia flagged an analogous dynamic in its own market: 58% of households said they want a basic relationship with the energy system — fair price, reliable supply, good service — and many don't understand their own tariffs or whether they are on a competitive deal, according to RenewEconomy's June (2026-06-22) reporting. Utilities asking those customers to engage with demand response face a sequencing problem. Getting someone to shift their dishwasher cycle to off-peak hours is harder when they can't read their current bill.2
The knowledge deficit also creates a measurement problem. If 14% of customers believe they own battery storage when under 1% actually do, program administrators drawing on self-reported data to estimate flexible capacity will overcount available resources. Dispatch models that assume a certain volume of dispatchable customer assets could fail when those assets don't materialize during a stress event. Grid operators in markets building toward high VPP penetration need verified asset inventories, not survey-based proxies.4
PG&E's experience with home energy reports offers a partial answer: sustained, personalized outreach at scale does change behavior and can be documented through bill savings and emissions avoided. But the program's own numbers illustrate the ambition required — scaling from one million to 3.2 million customers took years and the backing of a utility serving one of the largest service territories in the United States. Smaller utilities facing similar grid management challenges don't have the same runway.3
The concrete thing to watch as VPP legislation advances in New Jersey, Virginia and Illinois is whether states mandate verified asset enrollment rather than relying on customer self-declaration. Without that, the gap between what customers think they own and what utilities can actually dispatch will persist as a quiet ceiling on how much peak-load relief VPPs can deliver.4