The GridSavvy Community program was created by Sonoma Clean Power (SCP), the community choice aggregator (CCA) for California's Sonoma and Mendocino counties. This innovative program moves away from traditional siloed approaches that segregate participation by customer classes and/or technology and instead offers a range of customer options to increase DER technology adoption.

GridSavvy Community customers receive attractive incentives for purchasing and enrolling smart devices such as thermostats, EV chargers, and heat pump water heaters. The program focuses on engaging low-income and equity customers, offering these customers higher incentives and financing to ease first-cost barriers to DER technology adoption.

Together with its partner Olivine, SCP aggregates these devices and dispatches them to help shape and shift Sonoma Clean Power's customer load, reducing the utilities' need to buy pricier and dirtier power during periods of peak load. Because of of its focus on varied DER resources, the program is able to take advantage of multiple load modifying strategies, from event-based (with the EV chargers) to a daily load shift (with the water heaters). In the summer of 2020--when the California Independent System Operator (CAISO) called rolling black outs--the GridSavvy Community responded, keeping the lights on for customers and providing a source of local resilience.