SAN DIEGO, Aug. 12, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- As San Diego heads into the warmest weather of the year, San Diego Gas & Electric (SDG&E) is encouraging customers to sign up for Reduce Your Use alerts, to help them earn bill credits for saving energy during hot summer days when demand for electricity is high.

SDG&E residential customers are encouraged to set up email or text alerts so that they can be notified the day before a Reduce Your Use day and receive an update the next day on how much energy they saved. Participation is optional during Reduce Your Use days. This notification allows customers to prepare for Reduce Your Use days by taking simple actions such as raising the temperature two degrees on their thermostat. By doing so, customers can reduce their energy use during critical times while saving money on their energy bills.

SDG&E customers who respond by reducing their energy use from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. on Reduce Your Use days will see a credit of $0.75 per reduced kilowatt hour (kWh) on their next energy bill (or $1.25 per kWh for customers with qualified enabling technology such as home area network devices or programmable communicating thermostats). Customers can log into My Account at sdge.com on Reduce Your Use days to view their conservation goal. The online tool will also display how much energy they used and saved during the Reduce Your Use day.                  

More than 60,000 customers have signed up for Reduce Your Use alerts since SDG&E's newest demand response program was launched in summer 2012. Results from customer participation in 2012 demonstrated that customers who signed up for alerts saved more energy than those who did not. SDG&E customers who set up alerts in 2012 generally saved between three and 11 percent on Reduce Your Use days, while customers who did not sign up for alerts saved between zero and two percent on average. On average, customers who saved energy on Reduce Your Use days received almost $20 in bill credits in 2012.

SDG&E is a regulated public utility that provides safe and reliable energy service to 3.4 million consumers through 1.4 million electric meters and 860,000 natural gas meters in San Diego and southern Orange counties. The utility's area spans 4,100 square miles. SDG&E is committed to creating ways to help customers save energy and money every day. SDG&E is a subsidiary of Sempra Energy (NYSE: SRE), a Fortune 500 energy services holding company based in San Diego.  Connect with SDG&E's Customer Contact Center at 800-411-7343, on Twitter (@SDGE) and Facebook.

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SOURCE San Diego Gas & Electric (SDG&E)