Peak Rewards

How it Works

Just like installing solar panels or buying energy efficient appliances, using less energy during a few important hours per year can make a big difference on the climate and your wallet. Apart from avoiding the hours of 4-9pm, there are specific days when minimizing your energy use is especially important.

Peak Rewards is a program for all of San José that will send participants a notification during those important days when your reductions really count. During these days, SJCE will pay participants for taking action.

There are three different Peak Rewards programs:

Program	Who it is for
Peak Rewards for All	All eligible SJCE residential customers
Peak Rewards for Smart Homes	Eligible SJCE Residential customers with smart devices (thermostats, EV chargers, heat pump water heaters)
Peak Rewards for Business	All eligible SJCE commercial customers

In addition to getting paid, participating in any of the Peak Rewards programs provides the ability to help San Jose by:

Reducing the risk of blackouts: Reductions help reduce the likelihood of overloading the electric grid during high demand days, keeping the lights on for everyone in your area. When you combine San José’s efforts with others around California, it also helps reduce the likelihood of PG&E rolling blackouts.
Reducing carbon emissions: When demand is high, dirty and inefficient electricity generation plants come online and begin polluting to meet California’s energy needs. Your reductions help keep more of these plants and their emissions offline.
Reducing our long-term contribution to climate change: Your reductions help pave the way for additional renewable energy! Solar and wind are not always available. By being more flexible with your energy use, you are enabling more buildout of renewable energy and reducing the need for high pollution generation plants.
Investing in our community: By paying you for your reductions instead of an external power plant company, we are fulfilling our mission to deliver clean energy to San José while keeping the dollars in our community.
Improving program offerings: Your reductions help SJCE reduce long term power purchasing costs. As a not-for-profit, all savings from the Peak Rewards Program are either returned to you in the form of lower electricity rates or are invested into more programs for the San José community!

Peak Rewards FAQ

What is Peak Rewards?

Peak Rewards is SJCE’s demand response program. SJCE will pay you to reduce energy use on a few times per month, usually during peak times. An Alert may be triggered for a specific time to prevent stress on the electricity grid. Stress on the grid is generally caused by high demand or short supply and can lead to reduced grid reliability or, in the most dire cases, rotating outages. Currently, participants can only enroll in the program through the behavioral option: Peak Rewards for All.

Which Peak Rewards program should I enroll in?

If you are a residential customer, you can enroll in Peak Rewards for All or Peak Rewards for Smart Homes. Peak Rewards for Smart Homes is for customers with eligible smart devices such as thermostats, heat pump water heaters, and EV chargers. Peak Rewards for All is for customers who will manually reduce energy during a Peak Rewards Alert. Savings for Peak Rewards for All are calculated using your PG&E smart meter so as long as you pay your own electricity bill, you are eligible to participate.

For commercial customers, please enroll in Peak Rewards for Business.

How can I refer a friend to participate in Peak Rewards?

To encourage others, including family and friends, to join Peak Rewards, simply log in to your FlexSaver account. Once logged in, click on “Refer a Friend” on the left side of the page. Copy your referral code and share it with your friends!

Here are some things you can use to encourage them to sign up:

Highlight the benefits like saving on energy bills.
Share your own positive experiences and explain how easy it is to join. Remember to mention there are no penalties for not saving energy during an event!
Offer tips that you learned on reducing energy use to make it easier for others to get started.

Why would I choose Peak Rewards over a program like PG&E’s power saver rewards?

The Peak Rewards Program allows you to have a positive impact on your local community. It is designed to provide value to the residents and businesses in San José. Peak Rewards has a lower threshold for determining when to call an energy-saving event than the PG&E Power Saver Rewards Program, meaning that if a PG&E Power Saver Rewards event is called, it’s very likely that there will also be a Peak Rewards Alert issued, and you will not miss out on value. There will also be a lot more opportunities to participate during the year so you can earn additional rewards.

Who is Uplight?

Uplight is SJCE’s implementer for the Peak Rewards Program. They host the FlexSaver portal where you can see your results and send out all Peak Rewards Alerts and notifications. They also work with dozens of partners to ensure we can support as many of your smart devices as possible in our program.

Peak Rewards

How it Works

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Peak Rewards FAQ