Home energy reports that allow households to compare natural gas and electricity use with other similar homes in their neighborhood are getting a push as a first-of-its-kind service in the Pacific Northwest, according to Bellevue, WA-based Puget Sound Energy (PSE). The pilot in King County, WA, involving 40,000 households allows residential customers to figure out ways to save energy and money.

Called Home Energy Reports, the service allows each customer to see how much energy the average home in their neighborhood uses and to see how much energy is used by the most efficient 20% of nearby homes, PSE said. The average use from 100 homes within a two-mile radius of a customer’s home is used to calculate their particular data on both gas and electric use.

The Puget Energy utility serves slightly more than 1 million electricity customers and 739,000 natural gas customers. Individual energy use and billing data is not shared with any customers, said the utility in response to privacy concerns.

The reports are being sent to 30,000 customers monthly, and another 10,000 customers on a quarterly basis for a year-long pilot. Along with mailed reports, participants can also link from PSE’s website to another website (www.psereports.com) for more information on energy savings.

The effort is part of the utility’s stepped-up energy efficiency programs that are expected to help residential and small business customers save 53.3 average-megawatts and 5.3 million therms of gas during the next two years.

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